My friend died on the road beside me and I've never known grief like it

When Kev Reid, 63, saw Hairy Bikers star Si King speak of his immense 'struggle' since best friend Dave Myers died earlier this year, it hit home. Six months ago, Kev was out cycling with close friend John Cox, 75, when John unexpectedly died. Here, Kev, who is retired and lives in Cardiff with wife Emma, 57, shares the agony of losing one of your closest friends...

Although I’d lost family members before, including my two brothers, John’s death affected me more deeply. Aside from the fact that he died from a cardiac arrest while we were out cycling together, I had never grieved for a close friend before.

John and I met in the early 90s when I was 30 and had decided to swap my weekend football matches for cycling as it was easier on my joints. I joined Cardiff Byways cycling club, where John was a group leader, and every Sunday a group of us would cycle between 50 and 70 miles then have a few pints at a pub on the way home.

We became particularly close in the last 10 years when it would often just be John and me out cycling – numbers had dwindled due to injuries, old age and a few members had died.

Bonding on our bikes

Unlike lots of other sports, you can have a good chat at the same time as cycling. Spending up to six and a half hours at a time on a ride, we’d talk without drawing breath about everything from football, cycling and sport in general, to politics, the weather, wars, immigration and the NHS. Whatever was in the news that day, John and I would thrash it out whilst turning the pedals.

I’d ask him a simple question and he’d give me 14 paragraphs of banter in reply. Both dab hands at DIY, we’d talk about that, too, as well as our shared values for hard work and memories of what John called 'the good old days', being 12 years older than me.

Year-round, we rode every Wednesday and Sunday, and often on Fridays in the summer, too. Sometimes it would be a larger group of us, but often just John and I.

Every bike ride would be broken up with a stop at a café for coffee and cake. John always ordered decaf cappuccino and a slice of carrot cake or a chocolate muffin, and if we went to the pub instead he’d have a pint of real ale.

Struggling with stress

He’d retired from his job as an architectural technician in his 50s due to stress and it was something he continued to struggle with, the older he got. Not one to open up about his feelings, I’d recognise when he was having a bad day – indicated by one-word answers when I started chatting to him. I learned that if I stayed quiet, usually about 15 miles into a ride he’d start to tell me what was wrong.

His wife, Jan, said I was the only person he really felt he could talk to. A lot of the time, blokes can’t confide in each other the way that women do, but with certain guys it's different. That's how it was with John and me – we could open up to one another and discuss pretty much anything.

Every ounce of care I showed to him was reciprocated ten-fold when I was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2018 and had a partial nephrectomy to remove the tumour. John was devastated when I told him and was my first visitor when I came home after surgery. When I was well enough to get on my bike again a few months later, John cycled by my side.

For two years I was cancer-free, but then I was told it had come back in my lungs, which I’m still having ongoing immunotherapy for now. John was always interested in my treatment and I was happy to chat to him about it and keep him updated.

The day last April that John died, he’d been in a one-word-answer mood when he and I got on our bikes. We’d covered about 12 miles in silence when he finally confided that the cause of his latest stress was cowboy builders who had made a hash of his new kitchen.

"They couldn’t put a man and woman together, let alone a kitchen," he ranted. I told him not to worry and that I’d get a group of the cycling guys together and we’d fix the kitchen for him.

Ten minutes later, John was dead.

Shocking scene

It was a windy day and we were around 15 miles from stopping for a coffee when I heard a crash behind me as we went round a bend in the road in single file. I turned around to see that John had gone face first into a bush but that his arms were by his side. This told me he hadn’t put his arms out to protect himself and that he must have died before the impact – a cardiac arrest, as the post mortem revealed.

The emergency services were with us just 12 minutes after I frantically dialled 999. While waiting for them to arrive, I got John into position to start giving CPR but two amazing passers-by took over when they realised he was my friend and how distressing it was for me. When the paramedics then arrived, they worked on John while I stood by his side. Air ambulance paramedics were at the scene soon after and tried so hard to revive him but I knew he couldn’t be saved.

For months, I was traumatised by the image in my mind of my fantastic friend lying dead on the ground with blood coming from his mouth and eyes. I’m sure his death was stress-induced because he was as fit as a fiddle with the body of a 50-year-old and I honestly thought he’d be cycling until he was 100.

Missing my friend

I miss John terribly – the regularity of our meetings, looking forward to cake and coffee, having a laugh, putting the world to rights and cycling around beautiful countryside.

Being that bit older than me, John would often tell me stories about when he and the cycling club – which he’d joined when he was 12 – would go on tours to Spain in the 60s and 70s. On one occasion all 20 of them had ended up in A&E because they’d drunk too much of the local wine then got on their bikes. I miss those tales.

I even long for those days when he'd regale me with his substantial knowledge about the military, wars, rulers and kings – whether I liked it or not.

Men need to talk more

My heart goes out to Si King, one half of the Hairy Bikers, who has spoken so movingly this week about his ‘struggle’ since his best mate and fellow Hairy Biker Dave Myers died from cancer last February aged 66. His grief must be colossal, as not only were they best friends but they worked together so his loss is there every day. His other 50% has gone.

But I admire Si for opening up because the thing with men is that we’re not very good at talking about emotions or grief – yet it’s so important to share your feelings when you’re mourning someone you loved very much, rather than bottling them up.

Until I met my wife Emma, 22 years ago, I was never a great talker, but she’s encouraged me to be more open and I speak about my emotions a lot more now than I ever did.

For the first two months after John died, it didn’t sink in. I’d meet the rest of the group to go for a bike ride and would expect him to turn up at any moment. Nobody could believe he was dead because he’d been so fit.

The relationships I’ve got with the other guys in my cycling group are becoming stronger through a shared sense of loss and supporting one another, as we remember all the times we spent with John.

Hundreds of people came to his funeral in May, which was testament to what a popular man he was and how well-known in cycling circles.

If I could get on my bike for one last ride with John it would, ironically, be the route we took the day he died because it's one we'd ridden countless times together. His favourite pub was on that one and we scattered his ashes nearby.

Read more on grief:

• What are the grief stages? Hairy Bikers' Si King talks struggle since Dave Myers' death (Yahoo Life UK, 6-min read)

• I'm A Grief Expert, These Are 6 Actually Useful Things To Do To Help Somebody Who Is Grieving (HuffPost, 3-min read)

• Grieving while someone’s still alive: How does anticipatory grief work? (Yahoo Life UK, 4-min read)