First of three parts

Raised in an affluent, loving family on the Main Line, Matt Miller was a straight-A student with a sculpted body that even a Greek god might envy.

He had a devoted girlfriend and the brightest future - shooting for medical school.

Matt was not without his vanities. He loved to wear sleeveless shirts to show off his shoulders and biceps, and his teammates on the University of Virginia swim team nicknamed him "Sleeves."

At college last fall, the 20-year-old pursued a new love - triathlons.

On Sunday, Nov. 2, a gorgeous autumn morning, Matt set out on an 85-mile training ride with two classmates.

They had the hubris of youth - they were going to pedal up mountains.

After their steepest climb, to an elevation of 2,640 feet at Reed's Gap, they paused to peel off a layer of clothing, eat an energy bar, and briefly savor their accomplishment.

That is the last thing Matt remembers of that day.

The trio then cycled north on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a two-lane ribbon in the sky, along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Passing them going south was a caravan of 30 classic cars, taking a foliage tour.

About 10:30 a.m., at milepost 12.2, Matt lost control of his bike. He swerved across the double yellow line, and, as he fell, flew face-first, like a torpedo, into an oncoming Porsche, the second-to-last car in the caravan.

The driver of the last car saw Matt hit the Porsche, flip in the air, and land on the road - motionless, still clipped in to his pedals.

"That boy's dead," he told his wife, next to him in their 1970 MGB GT.

Just a moment earlier, celebrating at the summit, Matt Miller, so fit his resting pulse was 42, had believed he could overcome any challenge that life presented.

Barely alive

The driver of the MGB just happened to be Mark Harris, a 1978 graduate of Temple University Medical School and an anesthesiologist at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Va.

In all his years in classic-car caravans, Harris, 60, had never gone last, in the sweeper position, with the responsibility of stopping for any cars that broke down and radioing up the line for help.

Had he been in any other position, he likely would have motored on toward brunch at the Peaks of Otter lodge, never knowing what had happened behind him, especially because the walkie-talkie given him that morning didn't work.

But he was last. And he was out of his car and at Matt's side in seconds.