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The Chic Cyclists

Names: Tracy and Amanda Popken

Ages: 27 and 30

Neighborhoods: Bishop Arts and Kessler Plaza

Occupations: Fashion designer/shop owner and economic development researcher Bikes: A pair of Pinnacle bikes their dad bought at a garage sale many years ago Website: dallascyclestyle.com

You’ve seen them, these Popken sisters of Oak Cliff, riding their similar bikes in adorable day dresses and knee-high boots.

Tracy Popken is the fashion designer who owns Salvage House Boutique. And Amanda is the founder of Dallas Cycle Style, which aims to encourage cycling through fashion and espousing the type of bicycle lifestyle enjoyed in stylish European cities, such as Copenhagen. If you see these lovely Popken sisters riding around Oak Cliff, you might notice something is missing. Neither frequently wears a helmet. Amanda says she doesn’t like the way a helmet feels on her head. She doesn’t like lugging the bulky thing around. And she thinks of it as sort of a protest: “Why should I have to be the one to take this safety measure against cars? They should be watching out for me.” She is onto something. There are studies indicating that attractive women riding bikes in dresses and heels are less likely to be the victims of distracted motorists. “I pretty much ride in skirts and heels as my safety component,” she says. “Not that that’s going to help me if I get hit by a car, but this little bit of difference makes me more noticeable on the road.” She is quick to say she does not advocate riding without a helmet. And after two Oak Cliff residents were injured in separate accidents in which wearing helmets saved their lives, Amanda’s eyes opened a little wider. In fact, she wrote a blog post on her website, formerly known as Dallas Cycle Chic, advocating helmets. The Copenhagen-based owner of the Cycle Chic brand, with whom she was affiliated, is against wearing helmets. The theory is that helmets give the perception that riding a bike is not safe and therefore discourage riding. When he read Amanda’s post about helmets, he told her she had to stop advocating helmets or change the name of her group. So now it’s Dallas Cycle Style. “I should wear a helmet more often,” she says. was always very car-centric until the Better Block.”

Amanda and Tracy have a lot in store this spring. Among other things, they are planning a bicycle flash mob, where hundreds of cyclists suddenly descend on, say, the West Village. Amanda is busy researching cute helmets for a blog post. “There are at least half a dozen cute helmet brands out there,” she says.

The event, which created a bike lane on Tyler, along with other amenities such as sidewalk café seating and planters, showed her that those things could have a calming effect on traffic. Since then, she has backed bicycle infrastructure, and she now rides her bike more often in the neighborhood.

“It seems like the city is taking it more seriously,” says Jason Roberts of Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, who is the mastermind behind Better Block.

“For so long, it was like, ‘Why are all these other cities building bike infrastructure, and we are losing? Why are we not leading the pack when all the cities around us are making progress?’ ”

The overall goal of the Dallas Bikeway System Master Plan, approved by the Dallas City Council last summer, is to create a comprehensive bike system, increase commuter and utilitarian bike trips across the city, raise awareness and education about bicycle safety, and eventually create complete streets, which make room for cars, bikes, pedestrians and public transportation.

Dallas currently has almost 400 miles of bike routes, mostly in the city’s center, but no bike lanes. The Dallas Bike plan aims to remedy that. It calls for increasing the number of shared-lane markings, bike lanes and paved shoulders to make

Road Rules

the city more bike-able. The city has a good trail system that is improving, and the plan calls for continuing that work.

The bike plan is about more than just changing traffic patterns, says the city’s project coordinator, Max Kalhammer.

There’s the environment: “Part of the reason we got the funding to do the plan update is because North Texas Council of Governments had air quality funds available,” Kalhammer says. “Reduced emissions would have a positive impact on the region, not just the city.”

Then, there is public health: “Riding a bike to work every day as a transportation choice helps you stay in shape and be healthy and lead a healthy lifestyle, and most people who take active transportation to work are 70 percent less likely to have a heart attack because they’re [exercising] for 40 minutes a day,” he says.

Riding a bike is the most flexible way to commute without a car in Dallas, says Jonathan Braddick of Bike Friendly Oak Cliff. Braddick says he can get Downtown from his home in Kings Highway on a bike much faster than he can get there on a bus. Plus, buses don’t run frequently enough to be convenient, and for destinations other than Downtown, there are few cross-town routes.

There are times when Braddick can’t ride his bike, though. He travels to Austin for business about once a month, and while it would take only about 35 minutes to ride

Safety

ETIQUETTE FOR CYCLISTS

ETIQUETTE FOR MOTORISTS

Sources:

The roadie

Name: Jim Dolan

Age: 60

Occupation: Psychotherapist

Neighborhood: Kessler Park

Bike: Cannondale CAAD9 with Shimano Dura Ace components a bike from Oak Cliff to Love Field, there is no convenient route, and he would rather not haul his luggage on the bike. Love Field is only about nine miles from home, but by DART, it takes two buses, two trains and longer than two hours to get there.

Dolan started racing bikes in the early ’80s, after a running injury. Triathlons were becoming popular, so he trained for one as a way to stay fit. “I met a group of bike racers and realized that I really hated triathlons, but I really loved racing bikes,” he says. Later, he was injured in a race, and he gave up cycling for a while to focus on work and family. In the meantime, he became a master swimmer, and two years ago, decided he’d had enough pool time. So he saddled up again. Dolan completed about 35 races last year. “I like the intensity of it. I like the speed. When I’m in the middle of a pack of riders going 25 miles per hour in a criterium, peeling through the same turn, I just love that,” he says. “I feel more alive than just about any other time. You’re just right in the moment; you can’t be anywhere else.” Now Dolan trains twice a week with Richard Wharton at the Cycling Center of Dallas. They are “painful, very difficult” sessions performed indoors on bike trainers. Plus, he rides between 50 and 80 miles every weekend.

“I’ve committed myself to this,” Braddick says of living without a car (although his wife has one). “It’s sometimes a lonely world out there.”

The Rev. Ernie McAfee rides his bike from his home in Richardson to his church, Christ Episcopal, on West 10th at Llewellyn.

The trip takes the 73-year-old about an hour and a half each way, and he says it gives him a good workout and time to think about his day.

A few times, he has been involved in serious accidents. Once, on the Jefferson Viaduct, a taxi sideswiped him, and he got away with a skinned elbow and some road rash. Another time, in Richardson, a car hit him from behind. His bike was wrecked, but he wasn’t injured.

Worse injuries have come, he says, from slipping on mud on trails, and once, when a dog ran out in front of him on a training ride. He wrecked doing about 25 miles per hour and broke his hip.

Overall, though, he says he feels safe riding a bike in Dallas.

“I think I’m safer that way than driving down North Central Expressway every day,” he says. “I’m certainly happier.”

A small group of self-styled “vehicular cyclists,” such as Richard Wharton, reject the whole idea of the bike plan, arguing it sets back the integration efforts of cyclists like him.

Laying down a new infrastructure, Wharton says, would basically rewrite the rules of the road that have been established for more than a century — that bicycles are vehicles and should be treated as such via integration, not segregation.

“I’m not against the Bike Plan. I’m against the placement of education at the bottom of the list. [Education is] cheap, it’s efficient and it’s quick.”

Wharton says there’s something empowering about riding a bike on a busy thoroughfare during rush hour. You’re pumping along as two-ton vehicles approach from behind, slow down and pass. You own your lane. You’re confident, and you understand your rights as a cyclist. Wharton, owner of the Cycling Center of Dallas, demonstrates that bicycles can share the road harmoniously with cars — no bike lanes needed.

Thrilling though it may be, most people won’t do it, says Zac Lytle of Bike Friendly Oak Cliff.

“That’s fine if you’re a guy who wears spandex and can go 30 miles per hour down the road,” Lytle says.

He says it would be great if more people took vehicular cycling courses, but realistically, most people don’t want to. That’s too much like taking a defensive driving course, he says. Bike Friendly Oak Cliff works to teach cyclists safety and the rules of the road through group rides and other efforts.

Kalhammer says the Dallas Bike Plan’s education component should come in the

The Townies

Names: Luis and Sylvia Salcedo

Ages: 61 and 60

Occupation: Owners of Salcedo Group Inc., a civil engineering firm

Neighborhood: Bishop Arts

Bikes: Walmart; each one cost about $100

The Salcedos have owned a business in Oak Cliff since 2002, but they just moved here in September. Before that, they lived in Mansfield and commuted every day, a three-hour round-trip drive. Now they ride their bikes less than a mile to work in the Oak Cliff Bank Tower from their house in the Bishop Arts District. “We try to ride as much as we can,” Sylvia Salcedo says. “It gives you some fresh air, and it puts you in a good mindset before work.” Besides that, they’re not whizzing past everything. From a bike, they can look the neighborhood in the eye. “We say ‘hi’ to people in the street,” Luis says. “We see what’s happening in the neighborhood.” They also ride to church at St. Cecilia, and they sometimes pick up groceries at Fiesta and carry them home in their baskets. They’ve ridden across the bridge to Downtown a few times on group rides with Bike Friendly Oak Cliff. And once, they rode across and back by themselves. Recently, they took the DART rail to Mockingbird Station. “Next we want to figure out how to get on the Katy Trail,” Sylvia says. “That’s our next adventure.”

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The mounTain bike rider

Name: Jonathan Roach

Age: 31

Occupation: Manufacturing engineer

Neighborhood: Near Spiral Diner

Bike: Santa Cruz Chameleon Hardtail, plus a cyclocross bike, a neighborhood cargo bike and a dirt bike

Jonathan Roach started riding BMX bikes in kindergarten, and unlike most of us, he never stopped riding bikes. When he was 21, he took a job as a bike messenger in downtown Dallas, and that’s when he bought his first mountain bike. The BMX wasn’t practical for delivery, but a mountain bike could still jump curbs like a dirt bike. And Dallas is a pretty sweet location for mountain biking. “We have probably 10 good trails within an hour’s drive, and some are within riding distance,” Roach says. His favorites are Boulder Park, near Dallas Executive Airport, and Big Cedar Wilderness Trails, west of Duncanville. The closest is Oak Cliff Nature Preserve, and that’s where Roach had the George W. Bush experience. The former president is an avid mountain biker, and most riders know they could run into him eventually. Roach fell in with Bush, his secret-service team and pals one day in October 2009. “I happened to see him out there, and I did the right thing and caught on with them and rode in that group,” he says. “It was pretty crazy.” Roach says riding a mountain bike can make anyone a better cyclist. It helps with handling, reacting to obstacles and strength. “No matter what kind of cycling you may do, it improves your skills,” he says. “It’s going to make you an all around safer rider.” form of public service announcements and getting involved with children in schools.

“Honestly, I think once the momentum of the bicycle culture starts, it’s going to happen organically,” he says. “Once people start seeing the bike lanes and how they operate, motorists will get used to it.”

So what is happening with this bike plan, anyway?

Even though the plan is not implicitly funded, most city leaders say the plan will be implemented along with routine street repairs. As crews repair roads, they will add bicycle infrastructure as they go.

The Fort Worth Avenue Development Group recently raised $25,000 to create two miles of bike lanes on the avenue. The city also plans to create a two-way bike lane on the Jefferson Via- duct, plus lighting and a concrete barrier, that will cost $85,000. A funding source for this has not yet been found.

Bike lanes are expensive, in part, because the city doesn’t own any equipment for striping lanes, so the trucks must be rented. But the city and county are working on an agreement to use Dallas County equipment for bikelane striping.

“We’re exploring ways to reduce those costs,” says city council member Scott Griggs, who lives in Stevens Park.

Griggs says he would like to see bike infrastructure funding included in the city’s upcoming bond package proposal as well.

Kalhammer is busy writing federal grant applications that would help pay for the bike plan. One would allow the city to hire a fundraiser for efforts to raise private funds for bike lanes, he says.

Unfortunately, none of that will come soon enough for Dallas Torres.

Free Lessons

Richardson Bike Mart offers free bicycling safety workshops. Visit bikemart.com.

After a distracted driver doing at least 40 miles per hour crashed into him, Torres is shuffling around the house, watching TV and taking naps. It will take six months for his neck fractures to heal. He says he feels in his heart that the city will never take bike safety seriously, though they talk it up.

“I’m not asking for 600 miles of bike lanes, like Portland,” Torres says. “But just signage would make a huge difference. It baffles me that we can’t come up with $100,000 to just put up signs saying ‘share the road.’ ”

He also questions why the city doesn’t take a stronger stand against unsafe driving. There is no city ordinance banning texting while driving, for example.

“How much does it cost to make that law?” he asks.