Honoring Zoe Clay, a daughter gone way too soon. Winston-Salem woman, 23, died in cycling accident

A man politely approached him at a memorial service for his daughter Zoe, a 23-year-old Wake Forest graduate who died from injuries suffered in an accident on a mountain bike trail in Greensboro.

The man was riding an e-bike — an electric assist bicycle that uses a battery — near Zoe not long before her crash and said he had something he wanted to share: video of her racing that awful afternoon.

“I thought, ‘I don’t know if I want to see this,’” Clay said. “Then I decided I did. On the video you can hear the e-bike and then her passing him. She called out ‘On your left’ and ‘Thank you!’’

Those would be verbal courtesies sometimes forgotten in the heat of the moment.

“She was flying … . She sounded so happy,” Tom Clay said. “It was so great to see.”

And in that moment, a still grieving father got to see the pure joy his little girl got from racing her bike — and the happiness she provided to others along for the ride.

Huge outpouring

For those who knew Zoe Clay — hundreds, judging from the outpouring of support over the past two weeks — picturing Zoe Clay competing furiously and smiling the whole time is no surprise.

She was injured Oct. 12 in the King and Queen of the Watershed mountain bike race next to Lake Brandt. Details about the cause of the crash aren’t certain but her dad believes her death was immediate.

“Due to her excellent fitness as well as being a registered organ donor, all of her major organs have been accepted,” he wrote on the GoFundMe website earlier this month to thank hundreds of people from all over the country who raised nearly $80,000 to cover anticipated medical and funeral expenses. “In true Zoe form, she will save the lives of seven people, as well as countless skin graft recipients.”

Many of those, family, friends and riding companions, gathered in Winston-Salem this weekend to celebrate her life.

A memorial service was held last Saturday in a serene spot in the woods where she’d spent hours practicing. Photographs were hung in the trees shading her headstone, and Sunday was filled with a 5k run and age-groups bike races billed the GP Zoe Clay were held nearby.

She was a relative newcomer to bike racing, but she was a natural who in less than two years had reached the upper echelons of the sport. She majored in exercise science and physiology (and Latin) at Wake and ran track and cross country at Wake Forest, so she was well acquainted with what it takes to compete at a high level.

She spent part of last winter lining out in big-time cyclocross races in Europe, raced in the 2023 Winston-Salem Cycling Classic in August and was beginning to tour the country for professional criteriums competing for local team Velocious Sport.

“Meeting people who’d interacted with her, hearing Zoe stories, it helps,” said Tom Clay. “The diversity and the number of people, it’s amazing.”

Getting along with — and relating to — people of all ages is a rare gift. Especially in someone so young.

Evidence was everywhere along the winding course set up off Robinhood Road.

Friends and fellow cycling enthusiasts from the 0530 early morning ride group, many of whom skew older on actuarial tables, spent hours building Zoe’s Little Mountain — a ridable bridge called a “flyover” typically found at big money professional races, national championships and World Cup competitions. They personalized it with a banner bearing her name and trademark rubber duck.

“I was only able to get to one of her races,” Tom Clay said. “We live so far away from most of them, so I had no idea what the experience would be like.”

It didn’t take long for him to find out.

A fitting tribute

One of Sunday’s first races featured the kids from Velocious whom she helped coach.

Some looked to be barely off training wheels, new to the sport, while others rode with the confidence befitting young veterans of the N.C. Cyclocross Series, a race circuit that moves around the state each weekend in the autumn.

Most, if not all, of her charges ripped through trees and powered up steep hills with ducks affixed to their handlebars — a tribute to their friend.

“We can see a lot of Zoe in Harrison,” said Nick Morosco, a father who competes in the series with his son Harrison. “She was always excited to race, then talk bikes with the kids. She was happy every week and loved being with them. She was the reason we’d stay all day at these things … .

“Zoe was a phenomenal athlete you want your child to learn from and an even more phenomenal role model for how you want your kids to treat teammates, competitors and absolute strangers that are a fan of the sport.”

Deep down, Tom Clay knew that. A father just knows.

And in reflecting on the outpouring of support over the weekend, he was quick to note the special relationship she’d formed with those kids, her coach Jon Hamblen and his own family.

“Jon, I just love him,” he said. “The impact he had on Zoe’s life was tremendous.”

Before attending Wake, Zoe grew up around Innisfree, a working farm near Charlottesville, Va. for special needs adults. Her parents worked there for years, mom as the chief financial officer and dad in charge of maintenance.

“She was curious about others and wanted to know their story, get to know them better,” Tom Clay said.

Clearly she made lasting connections. Her name was everywhere all weekend.

“Hearing how everybody references her, hearing her name on the loudspeaker … Zoe stories,” Tom Clay said. “I’m sitting here trying to imagine what she’d think.

“She wanted to be the best but invisible. She was more comfortable in the background and to see her name on everything, she would be, not mortified, but maybe embarrassed.”

A father knows.