LAKE HELEN -- A 32-year-old Tampa-area biker was killed Saturday when he lost control of his 2000 Suzuki motorcycle on Interstate 4, smacked a guardrail and then overturned, the Florida Highway Patrol said. He's the third Bike Week-related fatality.
Edgar Javier Gonzalez of Riverview, who was wearing a helmet, was pronounced dead on the scene of the 5:50 p.m. accident on the eastbound side near Lake Helen.
Traffic was snarled for more than two hours near the exit ramp to State Road 44 to DeLand and New Smyrna Beach, the FHP said.
The first fatality was that of an Ohio woman, Linda Lockwood, 46, killed Sunday when she was thrown from the back f a Harley that collided with another bike after both touched while heading in the same direction on South Atlantic Avenue in New Smyrna Beach.
The second death occurred early Tuesday in DeLeon Springs, when just after midnight, Paul Allen Jarrett, 53, of West Virginia, and a friend, both retired police officers, were riding their Harleys north on US-17 when Jarrett lost control of his bike, crashed into a fence and separated from the bike.
Neither of the first two victims were wearing helmets.
The 10-day motorcycle rally centered around greater Daytona Beach, which was expected to draw half a million bikers, concludes today.