The untimely death of a mountain biker from Pittsburgh hit close to home for Dave Brown.

Brown, 47, of Plum started coaching on the Pittsburgh East Composite Mountain Bike Team earlier this year when his 12-year-old son joined the team. The biking team comprises around 40 athletes from school districts in the area, including Gateway, Franklin Regional, Plum and Pittsburgh.

That’s how he met Alex Leavitt. The 15-year-old from Swissvale joined the team last year. His dad, Chuck Leavitt, joined as a coach.

Chuck Leavitt died in May after complications from a mountain bike accident in Frick Park. He was 54.

When Brown made the connection, he knew he had to do something.

“Alex is 14 and his dad is no longer with him,” he remembers thinking.

On Nov. 8, that something came to fruition with a charity and fundraising ride through Frick Park – the trails Chuck Leavitt had ridden for decades before his death in May. Brown said around 140 people came to the ride.

The proceeds from the event, nearly $4,000, will go toward purchasing new bikes for the mountain bike team. The bikes, Brown said, would be available to team members in need of a set of wheels while theirs are in the shop.

As a coach on the team, Brown said he noticed some athletes would take their bikes to the shop over the summer and wait for weeks before getting them back. The wait meant missing weekly practices, which are held at Boyce Park.

So he and a group of riding buddies decided to buy a spare bike to avoid that situation. The money from the event will hopefully produce another “loaner” bike or two.

He hopes the money could also be used to help out with registration fees for any athletes who wish to join in the future.

“But the primary reason for Sunday was to show Alex, who lost his father, we support him and have his back. I wanted to let him know there were people there for him,” he said.

Sharon Leavitt, Chuck’s wife and Alex’s mother, also rides mountain bikes. She joined her son’s mountain bike team as a coach this year and attended the Nov. 8 ride with Alex and several of the teammates. She said it was special to see all the people there to support her and the family.

She described her husband as an avid outdoorsman who was invested in their three children.

“He loved keeping us busy,” Sharon Leavitt said, chuckling. “So he would really, really like what this is doing to help other kids do that.”

She said Alex joined the mountain bike team last year.

“It’s great – it gets kids more active, makes them appreciate nature, gets them to learn responsibility for the trails, it’s an organized sport with competition,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt, who works as a child maternal health nurse in the Allegheny County Health Department, said her husband of 18 years was riding the trails like any other day. When she got the call about Chuck’s accident, she went “into nurse mode,” she said, as she learned about his injuries.

“That day, he just lost his line – and he went head-on into a tree,” Leavitt said. He was in Nine Mile Run Hollow near Commercial Street in Swisshelm Park.

Chuck Leavitt died May 6, a week after the accident that left him paralyzed and dependent on a ventilator. The crash caused facial and skull fractures, fractured vertebrae, a concussion and spinal contusions.

“He didn’t want to live like that,” she said. “He was competent enough to make decisions. So he asked to have life support removed and to become an organ donor.”

And to keep people riding, the Leavitt family encouraged any donations to be made to Free Ride, a nonprofit organization devoted to reusing and recycling old bicycles, education and bicycle advocacy.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)