Ride of Silence - Melbourne Memorial Ride 2007

In May 2003, Chris Phelan organized the first Ride Of Silence in Dallas (USA) after endurance cyclist Larry Schwartz was hit by the mirror of a passing bus and was killed. The ride was a solemn event, to remember Larry and all cyclists killed while riding their bikes.

It was only supposed to be a one-time event, but as word got out about the ride, many cyclists contacted Chris with the desire to participate in this event. Although cyclists have a legal right to share the road with motorists, the motoring public often isn’t aware of these rights, and sometimes not aware of the cyclists themselves.

The ride has several goals:
To honour those who have been injured or killed
To raise awareness that we are here
To ask that we all peacefully share the road

At present there are four Australian rides planned for 19th May - Sydney, Bendigo, Brisbane and Melbourne, with hopefully others to follow suit. If you want to contact the local ride organisers, please use the online form avaliable on the US RoS site.

I’ve scrubbed, cleaned, tidied and generally re-jigged the WoJ WP theme in the last week and have added links for each Australian RoS ride under the central column. So further information will be posted there as it comes to hand. If you’re interested in organising a local RoS, peruse the extensive organiser resources via the US site.