A CYCLIST who was killed in a crash on notoriously steep A39 Porlock Hill last summer was a 75-year-old man from the Wellington area, it was revealed during an inquest.

Switzerland-born Rudolf Schmidheiny died when his bike hit a wall while he was descending the one in four gradient hill, the UK’s steepest A road dropping 725 feet in less than a mile.

Mr Schmidheiny suffered traumatic head and chest injuries in the impact.

Somerset Senior Coroner Samantha Marsh said: “For reasons unknown, he lost control of his cycle on a bend.

“Porlock Hill has a steep gradient and so he was travelling at speed and appears unable to avoid colliding with a sign.

“He sustained significant and unsurvivable head injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene.”

Mr Schmidheiny, a retired chef, of Lee Park, West Buckland, had been cycling on Exmoor before making the descent into Porlock at about 3.30 pm in the afternoon on Tuesday, August 27.

Residents and passing motorists who stopped at the scene gave First Aid and ambulance service paramedics also tried to save Mr Schmidheiny’s life but they were unsuccessful and he died at the scene.

Mr Schmidheiny’s family later expressed their thanks to the people who gave First Aid to him.

Mrs Marsh, holding inquest proceedings in the Old Municipal Buildings, Taunton, concluded Mr Schmidheiny’s death was accidental, with a medical cause of cerebral and thoracic trauma.

Mr Schmidheiny had lived in West Buckland with his wife, retired English teacher Jane Schmidheiny.

Just four months before Mr Schmidheiny’s death, there was another fatal crash on Porlock Hill, this time at the top, when a Minehead man hit an Exmoor Pony as he rode his motorcycle along the A39 in the early hours of April 22, a week before his 60th birthday.