Ride of Silence
Ride of Silence
by Damion Alexander
If you read my column regularly, you already know I am a cycling advocate, and I ride every day. I have not missed a day in over two years. Of all the rides on Tucson’s calendar, there is one I never miss.
It is also the one ride I do not want to do.
That may sound strange coming from someone who helps promote it, but that feeling is exactly why the Ride of Silence matters. Too many people tell me they avoid this ride because they do not want to sit with the sadness of what it represents. They do not want to think about death. They do not want to imagine loss. And honestly, neither do I.
But the real purpose of this ride is bigger than mourning.
The Ride of Silence, held this year on May 20 at Reid Park, is one of the most powerful opportunities we have each year to bring public attention to cycling safety. Yes, it honors cyclists who have been killed or injured, but its greater purpose is awareness. It creates visibility for the people who ride our roads every day and reminds the entire community that safer streets remain an urgent need.
When hundreds of cyclists move slowly through the streets together in silence, the message becomes impossible to miss. It creates awareness in a way statistics, policy reports, and public meetings rarely can. It shows drivers, elected officials, and city planners just how many people care about safe roads, and it reminds everyone that behind every bike lane, every safety law, and every infrastructure discussion is a human life.
That connection between loss and advocacy has long been embodied by people like Jean Gorman.
After her son Brad Gorman was killed by a motorist on Catalina Highway, Jean became one of Arizona’s most important bicycle safety advocates. Her work was crucial in helping push Arizona’s three foot passing law, requiring drivers to give cyclists at least three feet of space when passing. What began as personal grief became statewide awareness and lasting safety policy.
She also helped push forward the Brad Gorman Memorial Bikeway along Catalina Highway, extending safer cycling infrastructure into one of the region’s most heavily used recreational corridors. Through education campaigns, community outreach, and years of public presence, Jean showed something simple but profound. One person, driven by grief and purpose, can help change the culture of an entire community.
Later, I met Brandon Lyons under similar circumstances, though his path began differently. Brandon was struck by a vehicle on Sunrise. I went to visit him in the hospital, as I have done with many injured cyclists over the years.
When someone is in that bed after trauma, after shock, after the life they knew has been changed, I often ask the same question once they are coherent enough to answer. Do you want to be an advocate? Do you want to speak up?
Most say no. And that is completely understandable. Many are still recovering from traumatic brain injuries, broken bodies, long hospital stays, and emotional shock that is difficult to put into words.
Brandon was different.
Even before that crash, he had already been drawn into cycling safety work through Look Save a Life after experiencing a prior collision himself. He had the personality for advocacy. Outspoken, driven, and willing to step toward difficult conversations instead of away from them. After his injury, he did not retreat. He stepped forward.
For years afterward, whenever a cyclist was killed in Tucson, Brandon was there. Memorial rides, crash sites, interviews, public awareness events. He showed up again and again. More often than not, I was the call he made on the way there.
What made both Jean and Brandon so impactful was not just what they believed, but what they were willing to do with that belief. They turned personal experience into public responsibility.
And that is how movements are built.
There are also physical reminders of these losses scattered throughout Tucson. White painted bicycles placed along roadways mark the exact locations where cyclists were killed. These ghost bikes stand quietly in the open, often fading with time, but never fully disappearing. Most people drive past them without understanding what they are. But each one represents a person who left home on a ride and never returned.
There are more of them than most people realize.
So how do we make those deaths not be meaningless?
That is really the question underneath all of this. Because when a cyclist is killed, the loss is immediate for a family, but the meaning of that loss is something the community either preserves or allows to disappear. We can let it become just another statistic, or we can choose to let it change something about how we move through the world.
Even here in Oro Valley, where infrastructure is often better than other parts of the region, this is not an isolated issue. Cyclists do not stay within city limits. People ride for commuting, recreation, health, and connection. A single ride might pass through Oro Valley, Tucson, Marana, and Vail all in the same morning.
This is why bicycle safety must be understood as a regional issue, not a local one. Just as the Regional Transportation Authority plans roads and transit as a connected system across Pima County, cycling infrastructure must be viewed the same way. A safe bike lane in one city does not protect a rider if the next stretch of road becomes dangerous.
We all share the same network of streets. And because of that, we also share responsibility for what happens on them.
That is why this ride matters.
When 500 cyclists move together through the streets in silence, escorted by police, it becomes impossible to ignore. For the media, for drivers, and for the wider community, the message is unmistakable. People care deeply about this issue, and they are willing to show up even when it is uncomfortable.
Jean Gorman showed what one voice shaped by grief can do. Brandon Lyons showed what one survivor shaped by experience can sustain.
Most of us may never become that level of advocate. But the Ride of Silence gives each of us the chance, at least for one evening, to step into that responsibility. Each rider becomes part of something larger than themselves. A moving witness. A public memory. A visible demand for safer streets.
Sometimes the way we make sure these deaths are not meaningless is not by dwelling on loss. It is by turning that loss into awareness.