Jun 4, 2004 7:18 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (New York) -- A 58-year-old man was killed when he was thrown from his motorcycle in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
New York City police say Mike Cicchetti was heading west on 57th Street when he apparently lost control of his bike.
Cicchetti was a longtime Hells Angel who lived in Bay Ridge.
Here's more details...
Man dies riding bike he loved
By JONATHAN LEMIRE
and TONY SCLAFANI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A popular Brooklyn biker who got his Harley-Davidson back from the shop yesterday was killed when he hit a poorly patched piece of road and was hurled under a car, cops said.
Former Hell's Angel Michael (Mike the Bike) Cicchetti, 58, skidded out of control at 2 p.m. while riding west on 57th St. in Sunset Park, cops said.
After hitting a raised manhole cover, he smashed into two parked minivans, then plowed into a Lexus near Fifth Ave., leaving a 40-foot skid mark, witnesses said.
His helmet was knocked off before he fell under the car, spilling blood across the pavement. He was dead at the scene.
"I heard like a crunch and then turned and saw the bike going wild," said neighbor Mariel Lopez, 43.
Cops blamed the crash on a mound of asphalt patching around a raised manhole cover, which sources said was the result of a leaky sewer trench line. "It's a sewer line issue," said a top police official.
A city Department of Environmental Protection spokesman declined to comment.
Fellow bikers and family members gathered at the crash site. "He's been riding for 40 years. He doesn't make mistakes," said Cicchetti's cousin Joe Cali, 55, a Hell's Angel from Lynbrook, L.I. "The street is the problem."
Neighbors said the street has long been riddled with potholes. "At night, you can hear cars scraping their bottoms on the manhole," said Angela Lourdes.
Cicchetti's Bay Ridge landlord said the tattooed biker took off from his job as a city maintenance worker to ride.
"[Being without] that darn bike had been making him miserable," said Stella Jouvanis, 68. "He got it back and he finally seemed happy."
With Michele McPhee
Originally published on June 4, 2004