Phil Heiman, Sonoma County cycling advocate, dies at 69

Phil Heiman and Javier Sanchez were in rival cycling teams.

Heiman, who led the local for many years Colavita-NorCal team, regularly raced against Sanchez and his Red Platoon crew, who Heiman jokingly called “The Red Menace.”

But such was Heiman’s love for cycling and his total support of his friends and fellow competitors that he always showed up early and stayed late to help a competing team organize a weekly bicycle race in Santa Rosa.

“Phil was a constant resource for us,” Sánchez said. “He was always there early to help set up the course, he would race and then stay late to help tear it down. He helped for so many years.”

Heiman’s support and enthusiasm for the Sonoma County cycling community was legendary. He operated and raced with the Colavita team. He launched a Tuesday night race-pace ride in the neighborhood Two Rock which welcomed riders of all levels. And he actively encouraged everyone, but especially young riders who were just starting out.

“He was just a huge support,” said John Fisher of Santa Rosa, who helps run the Sycip Vrom youth cycling team. “There’s a whole group of teenagers who loved that man. He was a mentor and an ambassador.”

On November 3, the day after his 69th birthday, Heiman was riding a warm-up lap in preparation for a cyclo-cross event in Sacramento when he swallowed a bee or insect and was stung. According to his wife, Caroline Hughes of Penngrove, he told people around him he was having trouble clearing his throat. He went to the medical tent and was told to go to the emergency room.

But Heiman collapsed near his truck. His throat was swollen and he was without oxygen for about 20 minutes, Hughes was told. He was taken to UC Davis Medical Center but never regained consciousness.

He died Monday, November 11. He was 69.

Born on November 2, 1955 to Lynn and Jerry Heiman, Phil grew up in Illinois and graduated from Crystal Lake Community High School.

As a young man he moved west and began working for Marin Water.

His marriage to Theresa McGinnis ended in divorce, and he and his two young sons were living in Novato when he met Hughes.

Hughes recalled that her son and one of Heiman’s boys, both about 6, got into an argument while playing in the common area of ​​their apartment complex.

Hughes, who had received a report of her 9-year-old daughter’s struggle, went to Heiman’s apartment.

“I ran over there, I knocked on the door, 100 pounds of pure anger,” she said. “The way he diffused the situation with this angry tiger mother and these two boys who were scared of each other… I was so impressed with the way he handled the situation. Within a minute or two the boys went off and played.”

“Two weeks after the fight I was like, ‘Oh, this is how it happens,’” ​​she said.

It was love.

“We were just a really good partnership,” she said.

That was in 1991. The couple married in 2006 and settled in Penngrove.

A lifelong athlete who played football, basketball and baseball as a young man, Heiman discovered cycling and immersed himself in it.

Heiman would learn a new cycling discipline and then another, Hughes said. He rode just about everything: road, mountain, gravel, cyclocross.

“He started doing time trials and I think that was to get a new bike,” said Hughes.

Heiman’s son Phillip of Petaluma said his father was so devoted to cycling that he weighed and measured his food.

“He was totally obsessive-compulsive when it came down to it,” he said.

But Heiman also loved fun and good company. Cycling, and the community that came with it, gave him both.

“He was kind of a party guy, he loved gatherings,” Philip Heiman said. “Doing these things was a way to connect with like-minded people.”

Friends called Heiman a natural team leader.

Christine Culver of Santa Rosa, a former cyclist and former teammate, said Heiman could laugh and argue with the best of them on a cyclo-cross course, where it is not only accepted but encouraged.

But as a rider and race organizer, he was deeply conscious of safety.

“He was a safe wheel,” she said. “I always knew he would never do anything squirrely. I knew that if I could sit in his driver’s seat, he would never make a bad choice.

He organized his Tuesday night two rock drive in the same way.

He wanted people to drive fast, have fun, but most of all, stay safe. It was a formula that regularly attracted teenagers, weekend warriors and sometimes professional riders.

“He planned the course, planned the route, made sure the route was clear, looked at the weather in advance. As a junior team director, there is a safety and reliability factor for us. We knew it would be taken care of,” Fisher said. “He did not take safety for granted.”