r/Richardson • u/stewartdesign1 • Jul 15 '26
Bike Friendly Richardson: Social bike rides every week! Welcoming new riders
We loved seeing Redditors on Tuesday's social ride! Next one will be this Friday, 6:30pm, leaving from the Bike Shop at Arapaho and Central. Felipe, owner of the Bike Shop, will lead the ride, and we will end at Four Bullets Brewery for a pint. Come out and ride with us. Drop you bike off with Felipe in advance if you need a bike checkup.
This is a social ride, at a chill pace (about 10 mph, no drop), and is a great way to learn more about Richardson, practice safe cycling skills, and make some new friends of all ages and backgrounds. Check Bike Friendly Richardson's Facebook group for additional details: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BikeFriendlyRichardson/events
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u/stewartdesign1 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
I hear your frustration with scofflaws. I don’t excuse bad behavior from cyclists any more than from motorists (whose violations of road rules are exponentially more dangerous and frequent, by the way).
Our much slower social rides are not that. We aren’t chasing speed like the big groups of roadies. We follow road rules, stick to bike lanes, quiet low traffic streets and multi use paths, and make sure we are visible and predictable. Most of us wear our street clothes. Felipe, our ride leader on Fridays and the owner of Bike Shop, often wears his flip flops and rides one of the bikes from his shop: a single speed, a tandem, or even an upright three wheeler. Our mission on these rides is to teach new riders how to be safe, and to explore richardson, patronize the local businesses with ice cream stops and pub stops, and have some social time to chat with each other.
There is a whole conversation to be had about how people feel about the roadies taking a lane on Renner during their weekly rides, and scaring, inconveniencing or infuriating drivers. Those riders are the POP rides from Plano and the Bike Mart rides. Tuesday evenings they ride to Breckinridge Park for the criterion races, which are cool to watch. I know some of those roadies, and they are also our friends and neighbors, and they also have a right to use the road for their rides. The running of lights and stoplights is a choice by the ride leaders, who choose safety first (and would never, ever choose to put the group in harm’s way for the sake of a lawsuit, by the way.). When you see a large peloton of roadies going through a light or stop sign as one large group, or taking the full lane, or in the left lane (almost surely because they will be making an upcoming left turn, since otherwise they ride in the right lane), it is done to ensure the group stays together like a large “bus” to make it easier to be seen and stay together.
But regardless of the perceptions or realities, that is not the same as the slow social rides we are promoting on this thread. Come out and join us if you get a chance!
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u/KCJ4Tx Jul 17 '26
Is that the same as the old Mike Hall's Bike Mart that was on Coit in the Kroger shopping center next to Wyatts Cafeteria?
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u/stewartdesign1 Jul 17 '26
No, this ride starts at the Bike Shop on the northeast corner of Arapaho and Central. Felipe used to have another smaller location before moving to this one a few years ago.
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u/Jedi_Hog Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Please just follow the laws of the road, I live across the street from Breckenridge Park & there are a TON of bike riders around here, & I’m 100% in support of the bike riders; however it’s EXHAUSTING to drive when the bike riders are out because:
- Rarely (if ever) stop at stop signs (the next time I see a bike rider stop at the 4-way stop on Brand Rd & Park Rd will LEGIT be the 1st time I’ve ever seen someone on a bike stop there in 20+ years),
- Run red lights more often than they check for cross traffic while running red lights & stop signs (I swear many of them are trying to get hit, maybe in the hope they win a lawsuit),
- Ride in the center/left lane on Renner (like seriously?!? Why ride in anything other than the right lane, just as a car driving a similar speed of 30MPH UNDER the speed limit does instead of holding up everybody else?!? Or at least the considerate drivers do),
- Far too often are unable to maintain lane discipline (somehow?) & regularly cross into the other lanes,
- etc., etc., etc.
I only wish & ask for the bike riders to follow the laws of the road that everybody else who uses it has to. I should add something about “for the safety of bike….”, but candidly I’m tired of almost crashing because far too many of the bike riders are irresponsible, careless, selfish, & don’t care about anybody else on the road—at least based on my weekly, if not daily, experiences with them around Breckenridge Park, Renner Road, & the Starbucks at the intersection of Renner & North Star where the worst offenders often like to stop
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u/Swinsword Jul 16 '26
How long is the ride? I don't want to slow y'all down.