It seems that Steve Tilford has followed Mike Deme’s wheel to the Beyond.
Few details yet, but it appears that he and a friend were in a horrific pileup involving a van and two semis west of Grand Junction.
Steve and I weren’t close, but we used to bump into each other now and again at various races, and he was always approachable, friendly and generous with his time.
And he wrote unsparingly of his sport, bicycle racing, on the blog. If you cut a corner, Tilly was gonna call you on it.
This is shaping up to be an exceptionally bad year. My condolences to his friends, fans and family.
Mad Blog Media 
The “Iron Otter” has returned to the source. He was different in that he went from road racing to mountain bike racing. I’m thinking it’s usually the opposite; Cadel Evans is an example. Here is his Mountain Bike Hall of Fame bio.
http://mmbhof.org/steve-tilford/
Yeah, ol’ Tilly did it all. Road, mountain, cyclo-cross. He was a bike-racing fool, a genuine character, like Laurence Malone an American original.
Great July 1998 write-up on Tilford by Bill Strickland that captures Tilly’s tenacity, drive, and talent.
F__in’ guy was the Keith Richards of cycling in later years. Looked like hell but could still ride like stink. I met him only a time or two at big races where he was usually hanging out while Trudi worked for various teams. We had a mutual friend, Ed Bauman – story was he was the guy who got Tilford involved in cycling.
Horrible situation with this crash – survives driving THROUGH a semi-trailer bottom to top only to be killed by another semi-truck barreling into the mess? Seems to prove “When your # is up, it’s truly up”, even if you survive a horrible crash a few minutes before. RIP Tilford.