Motorcycle Crash Kills Popular Doctor : Accident: The Santa Barbara man is called a ‘physician’s physician’ and an ardent biker. The mishap occurred near Ojai.

A ride on a Harley-Davidson--one of the prizes in a Goleta fund-raising auction--ended in horror last weekend with the death of a well-known Santa Barbara physician-turned-Harley aficionado on a dark country road near Ojai.

Dr. Henry Lee Holderman, 58, who was known as a “physician’s physician” to a vast number of patients and acquaintances in Santa Barbara, was pronounced dead at 8:10 p.m. Sunday, less than an hour after his motorcycle ran off California 150 west of Ojai.

His passenger, Allison Louise Golledge, who had won the ride in an auction last year, survived, although she suffered seven broken ribs, a broken clavicle and numerous cuts.

Holderman, a native of San Antonio, Tex., had lived in Santa Barbara since 1963. He was a past president of the Santa Barbara County Medical Society and had held a number of medical posts in the community.

But Holderman hardly fit the image of the conservative physician.

Indeed, in the last few years he became a devoted biker who loved nothing better than to take off on his big black and maroon 1340cc Harley Heritage Softail, draped in black leather, wearing his Harley belt buckle.

Often riding behind him was his wife, Joanne, who wore her own silver-studded black leather jacket and a T-shirt with a stylized American flag. She is well-known in the Santa Barbara arts community.

“He was a conservative person,” said Peter Jordano, a Santa Barbara businessman who was also Holderman’s friend and patient. “But he needed to ride into the wind and enjoy life.”

Eva Haller of Santa Barbara, another longtime friend and patient, said she believed that “he was the physician to more people than any other physician in town.

“There was something about him that made you want to stay well. You didn’t want to disappoint him and get sick.”

His daughter, Caroline, a designer who lives in San Francisco, said her father was an intense man, no matter what he did.

“He was one of those very passionate people when it came to his family, when it came to his motorcycle and when it came to his patients,” she said.

So little wonder that Golledge, 45, was thrilled in October when she won a ride with the doctor on his Harley.

Golledge, a Goleta school consultant, bid about $210 for the ride at an auction to benefit the Goleta Education Foundation, a fund-raising arm of the local school district.

“She was terribly excited,” recalled her husband, Reg, who teaches geography at UC Santa Barbara. He said Holderman was also his family’s doctor.

“It was very spirited bidding. Everyone knew Henry was an expert cyclist.”

Her husband said he wasn’t sure if his wife had ever been on a motorcycle before.

“Henry provided all of the equipment,” he said. “When she came out without gloves, he gave her gloves. He strongly advised her to wear a thick leather jacket and jeans.”

“Henry was very safety conscious,” he said. “He instructed my wife where to put her feet and how to sit.”

It had taken about 10 months to set up the ride because of conflicting schedules between Holderman and his wife, Reg Golledge said.

Finally, he said, Holderman, who had just returned from a big motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S. D., gave the green light for the ride.

“It’s more than ironic, it’s extremely tragic, given the goodwill that was in mind” at the auction, Reg Golledge said.

He spoke to a reporter in his wife’s room at Ojai Valley Community Hospital. Golledge, a physical education consultant for the Goleta Union School District, could barely talk, except to say she was “very lucky” to still be alive.

Nearby stood her two children, Bryan, 13, and Brittany, 11. “I said, ‘Bye, have fun,’ ” Bryan recalled telling his mom before she started out on the fatal ride Sunday about 1 p.m.

Richard Shelton, superintendent of the Goleta school district, said the auctioned ride was designed to take a passenger “to any destination of (the passenger’s) choice within 100 miles of Santa Barbara and to treat the rider (to a meal) at a friendly biker cafe.”

And that’s what happened.

Golledge, decked out in a Harley T-shirt and a Harley bandanna, and Holderman, wearing his Harley attire, zoomed off on the country roads of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Ultimately, they stopped at the popular biker hangout, The Wheel, on Maricopa Highway, about four miles north of Ojai.

Golledge told California Highway Patrol investigators after the accident that Holderman had three or four beers at the restaurant. Results of toxicology tests will not be available for at least two weeks, the Ventura County coroner’s office said.

CHP investigators said Holderman was heading west about 60 m.p.h. on California 150, west of Burnham Road, when he apparently lost control of the Harley.

Sgt. John West, who went to the accident scene Sunday night, said “there were no skid marks, no indication of significant braking” and there were no curves in the road at the point of the accident. “It was a straightaway for about a quarter of a mile,” he said.

The Harley, which clipped several trees, was found about 70 feet off the road in a cluster of weeds, West said. Holderman, who was crushed under the machine, was wearing “a fiberglass skullcap that barely covers the top of the head,” West said. “His helmet appears to be one that is not legal.”

He said Golledge’s helmet apparently met state safety standards. A passing motorist attracted to the Harley’s taillight and Golledge’s cries for help called authorities, West said.

Holderman is survived by his wife, Joanne of Santa Barbara; a daughter, Caroline of San Francisco; and a son, Dr. William H. Holderman of Chicago.