HANOVER — Early-morning drivers traveling Route 2 on Friday past the site of last year’s fatal Trek Across Maine accident couldn’t help but notice a heavier than usual police presence.

With blue and yellow lights flashing on cruisers, trucks and cycles from state, county and local police departments joined American Lung Association Trek safety vehicles with amber lights flashing to slow traffic and increase awareness as more than 2,000 bicyclists rolled through from 7 to 9:30 a.m.

Additional police and Trek safety vehicles with lights flashing were parked on either end of the memorial to David LeClair.

LeClair, 23, of Watertown, Mass., was riding with his employer’s team, athenahealth, when he fell into the path of a passing tractor-trailer, Maine State Police said. LeClair was killed instantly.

Most bicyclists paid their respects to him as they rode past. Many did the ritual signing of the cross using hand gestures, or low waves with their right hands, or looked at the memorial and nodded.

Nyla York signed the cross, and then put her gloved hand to her mouth and blew a kiss to LeClair’s marker.

Another woman riding by looked at the marker and said, “Aww.”

The memorial site at the accident scene, which is approximately 10 miles from the Trek’s start in Newry, was marked with a small, spoke-wheel circle sign bearing his initials, DLC. Below the initials was LeClair’s Trek number, 1945. It was secured to a tall green post behind the guardrail.

One bouquet of yellow flowers was at its base behind the guardrail and a taller bouquet of several colorful flowers and two red roses stood atop two layers of bricks in front of the post on the road side of the guardrail.

One rider sat upright on his bike and saluted the memorial with his right hand.

Another rider behind him asked aloud, “Is that the memorial?” And a bicyclist with him asked, “Is that it?”

One rider emptied her water bottle opposite the marker, perhaps a gesture to LeClair. State police investigators said LeClair was drinking from a water bottle when the accident happened.

Some bicyclists stopped to photograph the marker, even though all were told not to stop there to they would not create safety hazards.

Kathryn Libby, senior director of development for the American Lung Association in Maine, also told reporters not to try and stop trekkers there for interviews or interview any who stopped at the memorial site for safety reasons. When riders did stop, she called Trek volunteers standing by the memorial to tell the riders to start riding again.

The flowers were left at LeClair’s marker early Thursday evening following a private memorial service on Route 2, a Trek volunteer said.

More than 200 people attended it, Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant said.

“We closed down one whole lane,” Gallant said. “I was up there and (Chief Deputy) Hart Daley and (Deputy) Chip (George) Cayer, and we had our chaplain, Father Greg Dube, there, too,” Gallant said.

He said Trek officials had called him earlier and wanted to hold a memorial at the accident site and asked if deputies could help with traffic.

“I said, ‘Well, if you’d like, we have a chaplain who can come down,’ and they thought that was the greatest thing,” Gallant said. “So Father Greg went and said a few words. It was a good ceremony. It lasted about 15 minutes and they had five bus loads.”

Hanover resident Bob Moulton, who lives across from the accident site, said he walked over and joined the service.

“It was a nice ceremony,” Moulton said. “It was quite a group, nice group. Every time the trucks went by after they left, the flowers kept falling over, so we went over in the pouring rain and put a pot underneath it and wired it up to the guardrail so it wouldn’t blow down.

“It was a rough day last year,” he said of the accident. “It’s been pretty quiet here except for that day. … That was a long day.”

State police Lt. Walter Grzyb said Monday by email that their investigation showed the crash resulted from a combination of one or more of the following factors:

* LeClair had only one hand on the handlebar while drinking from a water bottle.

* LeClair may have struck the wheel of the cyclist directly in front of him.

* Air turbulence created by the passing truck.

“Any one of these factors, or a combination of one or more of them, resulted in LeClair losing control of his bike and falling into the path” of the 22-wheeler hauling corn feed from Colebrook, N.H., to Augusta, Grzyb said.

The truck, which is owned by Transport Serge Beauregard of St. Jacques Le Mineur, Quebec, was being driven by Michel Masse-Dufresne, 24, of Quebec.

Grzyb said there was no evidence of any contact between LeClair and the passing truck until LeClair lost control of his bike and fell into the path of the truck.

Friday’s Trek left Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry and ends 170 miles later at Steamboat Landing in Belfast on Sunday.

Up near the resort start, Gallant and Deputy Dave Hodgson stopped traffic on Route 2, telling bicyclists to continue pedaling onto the highway from Sunday River Road.

“The riders have been pretty good, although I’m getting a little tired of saying, ‘Yep, yep, thank you, yep, yep,'” Gallant said.

Several riders thanked Gallant and Hodgson. They did the same in Hanover, thanking Trek safety volunteers for their heavy presence.

“Thank you for remembering,” one rider told a volunteer standing beside his Trek safety truck with a row of rear yellow lights flashing.

“Thank you for being here,” another bicyclist said.

Gallant said he brought in deputies that usually work in the southern part of Oxford County to help with the Trek, stationing them in Hanover, Peru, and Canton. Additionally, South Portland police sent their motorcycle officer, Lt. Todd Bernard, and Scarborough police did the same with their motorcycle officer, Ian Theriault.

By 9:40 a.m., the line of trekkers had dwindled to a few riders as rain started to fall harder, increasing fog while lowering visibility.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com