Humble volunteer, devoted grandfather: the cyclists who died in Pilot Point crash
Scott Mages and Andre Kocher were “informal leaders” that everyone in the Frisco Triathlon Club looked up to, their friends and fellow triathlete Jeff Beckley said.
On Saturday morning, Mages and Kocher were hit from behind by a pickup truck while on an Ironman training ride just east of Pilot Point. They both died from their injuries after being transported to hospitals.
Mages, 55, and Kocher, 60, had come to the sport about 10 years ago and created lasting friendships from it. When you’re training three disciplines, you end up spending a lot of time together, Beckley said. But the bonding comes while you’re on a bike, he said.
A humble volunteer and avid outdoorsman
It was riding bike paths and quiet roadways that Beckley got to know Mages as an independent spirit and true outdoorsman.
Earlier this year, Beckley had mentioned to Mages that he was thinking about hiking the Grand Canyon from rim to rim to rim — a 44 mile endeavor. Just a couple of months later, Beckley opened Facebook to see Mages and his wife and a few friends on the edge of the Grand Canyon readying to embark on their 44-mile hike.
But that’s who Mages was, Beckley said. A Marine veteran, he was always thrilled to be outside and would share the stories once he got back home.
Mages also paraglided in his spare time. Once, he did a 100-mile running race.
“I asked him, ‘Which was harder, the Grand Canyon or the 100 miler?’” Beckley said. “And he said, ‘Well, they were both hard for different reasons, but I could tell you, I’ll never do the Grand Canyon hike again,’ but that was, that was who he was. He would just go and do these things and then come back and tell us about it.”
Beyond extreme sports, Mages was a humble volunteer. Never bragging or showing off about his volunteering, Mages was always ready to give time with a smile on his face.
“He volunteered for all kinds of things,” Beckley said. “I mean, the picture we have up on the on the Go Fund Me page has a picture of him riding the bicycle with a disabled runner or cyclist on a gravel road there. And you know, he would just do these things where, if you would ask for volunteers for something, he would be one of the first people to raise his hand and just go out and do it.”
Mages’s one shortfall was that he never RSVP’d. But even so, he was a welcome addition to every ride, run and swim.
“We’d show up there, and here’s Scott ready to go,” Beckley said. “He’d have his helmet on, he’d have his bike ready, and he would he was just like, Mr. Consistency. Was always there, he was always making an appearance, but he did it again with no fanfare.”
Going the extra mile
Beckley got to know Kocher well through their shared training for a California Ironman.
“When you’ve done a race together, you’ve trained together. We spent hours together just training,” Beckley said. “You just really kind of feel like you know, you’ve made a new best friend.”
Outside of the real estate business he ran with his wife, Kelli, Kocher was a dedicated father and grandparent. On the bike route, Kocher was a sucker for extra miles and extra hours.
Sometimes as the friends ventured beyond the original route, they found themselves in laughable situations, given they were in skin-tight cycling clothes.
“One time, we had a lady that pulled up to the gas station there in Howe who had a flat tire, and the three of us and our cycling kits were trying to help this lady change her tire,” Beckley said. “She didn’t have any way to get it changed herself, so we all just kind of rolled up our sleeves and tried to help her with that. We have pictures from that. I’ll never forget that experience there.”
Another time, the pair and another friend came across a torn-up road that they had thought would be paved. Though the friend and Kocher muscled through the bumpy quarter mile, Beckley refused for the sake of his brand new expensive triathlon bike.
“I put my bike over my shoulder, and I was just cussing and moaning the whole way up this hill through the gravel,” Beckley said, “and Amanda and Andre were just laughing at me the whole time that I just didn’t want to get my bike all dirty and messy through the gravel.”
The moment that will always stick with Beckley, though, is when he was struggling through the final stretch of the California Ironman. Kocher, a strong swimmer and cyclist, would just “get through” the running portion.
“He would always kind of finish within the time limit, but running was always the place where he was slowed down a bit,” Beckley said. “He was a bigger guy, and it just was harder for him to run. And I can remember running to mile 23 — so we had about three miles left in the race — and as I’m passing him, just his offering words of encouragement, just saying, ‘You got this.’ I’ll never forget it.”
Honoring Scott Mages and Andre Kocher
On Wednesday, the Frisco Running Company will host a Santa Run in honor of the two cyclists. The 8 a.m. race in Frisco will be on Legacy Drive, between Main Street and Eldorado Parkway, with routes for 5K and 1 mile.
Beckley said he hopes the race can be a step in the grieving process for the lives Mages and Kocher impacted.
“I think a lot of people will just come and just pay their respects,” Beckley said. “I mean, the memorial service will do a lot of that, but this will be a chance for the community, particularly the triathlon and the running community, to really get together and give hugs to one another.”
A GoFundMe page has also been set up in remembrance of the two athletes and their legacy for safer roads. The nearly $6,000 raised so far will benefit The League of American Bicyclists, a nonprofit dedicated to making roads safer for cyclists through policy, education and community engagement.