What is this?

• It's a website (not an organization).
• I started it in 1995(!).  It is over 30 years old!
• It won a “Best of Austin” award in the Austin Chronicle.
• It contains a wealth of both current and historical information.  I update content when readers supply the updated info, but I no longer seek out new information. (Last update: Jan. 2026)

Michael Bluejay’s bike advocacy

I’m retired from bicycle advocacy except for keeping this website and its discussion forum going.  Below is the chronicling of my work.

Lest anyone think that I’m trying to take all the credit, I’m quick to acknowledge the awesome work of countless other local cycle advocates, and I honor them in a dedicated list.  I’ve also compiled a detailed history of bike advocacy in Austin, which is mostly the efforts of others.

Why I did it

I was a bike advocate because of two things:

1. Excessive car use is damaging to society for at least ten different reasons.
2. Anyone who wants to combat that by riding a bike faces another problem: it’s dangerous.  That’s not fair.  You shouldn’t have to choose between contributing to societal harms and putting your life on the line.  This is why my safety advocacy included things like publishing How To Not Get Hit By Cars, and trying to ban parking in the bike lanes on Shoal Creek Blvd.

BicycleSafe.com

In 1998 I created this site with the flagship article, “How to Not Get Hit By Cars”.  It became immensely popular and was reprinted far and wide, including being a cover story in Carbusters magazine, a feature story in Australian Cyclist, and used in safety materials by governments and non-profit groups all over the world.  Fans also translated it into several different languages.  Of all the things I’ve done, I list this one first, because I hope it’s saved lives.

Car-Free for nearly 30 years

I walked the walk, or, uh, biked the bike.  Starting in 1987 I didn't own a car and my bike became my primary means of transportation for decades.  I didn’t get a car again until 2013 when my wife came home crying and shaking because the latest driver had tried to run her off the road.

Indirectly responsible for protected bike lanes?

I frequently tell anyone who will listen that late Coucilmember Chris Riley got the City to join the NACTO safety standards, which call for the signed pedestrian crossing and the protected bike lanes (separated from the car lanes with some kind of barrier), which is why you’ve seen them go up all over town starting in the 2020s, and as a result, he got more done than the rest of us advocates put together.

I saw Chris shortly before he died, and he astounded me by saying that this website in general and particularly the related email list with the spirited conversations between me, Mike Dahmus, and Patrick Goetz motivated him to get into bike advocacy, and that his life was better because of my efforts.  It was all I could do to sputter that it’s the other way around, I was visible as an advocate mostly because I was a loudmouth, but Riley actually Got Sh!t Done™.

But later I thought, if I take Riley at his word, then maybe without my site/email list he wouldn’t have run for City Council, or maybe he would have, but wouldn’t have pushed for the big bike/ped improvements that he actually did in this timeline.  I’ll never know for sure, but it’s possible that I indirectly helped Austin get protected bike lanes.  Since I have so few clear wins to claim from my advocacy history, I’ll have to hope so.

Here is the oldest post of Chris’ to the email list that I still have, from 1999.  And here’s the last post he made to the forum, in 2021.

Bicycle Austin website

I started it in 1995, and it’s the site that you’re reading now.  It was the very first bike advocacy website in Austin.  It’s also the second longest-running bike institution in Austin (right after Critical Mass, but before the Yellow Bike Project, which started in 1997).  Here’s more about the early history of the site.

But it wasn’t just early.  It’s also huge, with hundreds of pages (the Austin Chronicle called it “expansive”), and it covers all kids of stuff that nobody else does, such as the disparity in justice between drivers and cyclists and a history of bike advocacy in Austin.  I was gratified when it garnered a “Best of Austin” award in the Chronicle.

I still update the contents when readers report updated info, but in my retirement I no longer proactively seek out new info.  On occasion I publish a new article, and in keeping with my style, it’s something else that no one else has done, such as a chart and data showing the historical percentage of commuters in Austin who use a bike.

The Email List and the Web Forum

Leopoldo Rodriguez started an email list on a UT server in late 1993 or early 1994 for Critical Mass participants to discuss the ride.  This was invaluable because in the early days, riders were often subjected to harassment and arrest by the police.  When he retired from the list in 1998 I took over, and transformed it into a general bike discussion list, which boasted among its members City Councilmembers, city planning staff, and members of the Urban Transportation commission.  In 2008 I started a web forum, which operated side-by-side with the email list.  Since management of the list took time, in 2017 I made the list read-only, with new posts being made on the web forum, and flowing through to the email list.

Recognition for my work

I put in thousands of (unpaid) hours of advocacy work, but I won’t say it was a thankless task, because I got plenty of thanks.

• “A longtime champion of transportation biking and keeper of several expansive bike-related Web sites”.  That's how the Austin Chronicle referred to me. (11/6/2006) 
• Award for “Advancing Cycling in Austin”.  Presented by Bike Texas.
• Kudos from readers.  Members of the email list along with readers of the website and newsletter routinely sent in their praise, for example:  “Discovered and read your new media article, which indicates just how long it's been since I visited [the site]. Well done!  I truly admire your writing and perspective on the issues. Not only that, your efforts on the website provide a valuable history lesson for everyone in Austin. I'm blown away all over again." — Bob Farr
• “Best of Austin” in the Austin Chronicle.  “Michael Bluejay is determined to save the world, one turn of the pedal at a time.  He does so quite effectively on his very thorough Web site, covering every cycling issue imaginable. The highlight is an excellent manual on bicycling safety.”
• Support for the Bike Texas award.  When I wondered aloud on the forum whether I deserved the Bike Texas award, members came out of the woodwork to say that I did.  That, plus my sitting down to chronicle my efforts now, made me reappraise that I guess I did do A Lot of Stuff.

Covered “No Justice” issues extensively

The case in which a drunk driver killed a cyclist and faced zero penalties was the primary motivator for getting me involved in bike activism.  I spent hundreds of hours researching and documenting the disparity in justice for drivers vs. cyclists, with at-fault drivers who hurt or killed cyclists facing little to no penalties, while cyclists frequently got arrested for minor traffic infractions.  I compiled this on on a special section of the website, No Justice for Cyclists.

I held authorities’ feet to the fire:  I noted in an interview with K-EYE that the police had been sitting on the case of the drunk driver who killed cyclist Tom Churchill for six months, saying only that the case was “under investigation”, while a driver who killed a police officer was charged immediately without a six-month investigation.  After the report aired, the police suddenly, magically finished their “investigation” and turned their file over to the DA’s office.

On another occasion I steered a Critical Mass ride to the convenience store owned by the driver in that case. (Chronicle 5/23/97) 

Kept cycling issues visible in city council elections

I interviewed and surveyed candidates for City Council about their support for bike issues, and issued endorsements.  My endorsement apparently mattered, as I remember one year the Mayor’s office calling me to ask for an endorsement for his re-election bid, before I’d even started that year’s survey process.  My activism on this issue began with grilling candidates on my radio show on KO.OP. (Chronicle, 5/23/97)  In future races I made formal survey questionnaires that I sent to all, and published their responses.  In one year, I spent hundreds of dollars on an ad in the Austin Chronicle to highlight the endorsements.  One reader wrote, ”I really like the interview questions you asked Alvarez and Quintanilla, great work on that,” and another said, “You,sir are a born political organizer. My fiancée and I did vote for Alvarez because of your endorsement.”

Helped citizens press the government on bike issues

I set up forms on this website where readers could send comments to lawmakers on specific issues, and publicized it in my newsletter.  This resulted in hundreds of submissions from concerned citizens, and we won on some of those issues.

• 2003.  CAMPO: Keep bike/ped funding
• 2005:  CAMPO: Keep bike/ped funding (again)
• 2005:  Ban car-parking in bike lanes on Shoal Creek Blvd.
• 2006:  Oppose helmet law (reduces # of cyclists)
• 2008:  Ban car-parking in bike lanes on Exposition Blvd

Advocated Critical Mass

I was pretty big into Critical Mass.

• One of the first riders in Austin, in 1993.
• Drummed up local interest by posted small fliers on bikes all around UT.
• Started a worldwide directory of every CM ride.  Chris Carlsson, the main organizer of the very first CM ride (San Francisco, 1992), thanked me in his book for that “awesome” website.
• 
• Invited by Carlsson to contribute to the book commemorating CM’s 10t birthday.  Read my bit at the book release in SF.
• After police arrested 250 riders on the July 1997 San Francisco CM ride, I made a pilgrimage to SF to ride in the August ride to show support, traveling with fellow local bikers Eric Anderson and Jerry Rogers.  (The July '97 ride made bike issues impossible to ignore, and the momentum led to the SF’s first comprehensive bike plan, including bike lanes and other accommodations).
• Rode CM rides in Austin, San Francisco, New York City, London, and Prague.
• Interviewed extensively about CM for the Bike Like U Mean It documentary.
• Helped the filmmakers get CM footage by carting them through the ride in my trailer.
• Was invited to contribute to the book commemorating the 10th anniversary of the first CM ride, and traveled to San Francisco to read an excerpt at the book release.
• Wrote an article for cyclists in cities that don’t have CM yet, “How to start a Critical Mass Ride”.
• Twice co-founded a Courteous Mass ride to appeal to riders wary of confrontation with drivers.

Aided and abetted the Yellow Bike Project

I was never a collective member but I was friendly with the founders before they started YBP, and I helped in various ways over the years.

• Interviewed them on my radio show when they first started.
• Made and hosted their first website.  Here it is in all its 1999-2000 glory.  (source: the date code inside one of my files was Jan. 13, 1999)
• Helped with the bike-powered move of their shop.
• Facilitated a meeting.  When there was friction between the manager of the satellite shop and the rest of the collective, I facilitated a meeting, because I was friendly with both sides so I could be impartial.

More on the Yellow Bike Project.

Lots of letters to the editor

I wrote numerous letters to the local papers (most of them published), to keep bike issues front and center, especially when a previous letter-writer or the media had gotten something wrong.  At least two of my letters were in defense of more well-known and profilic writer Amy Babich.  Here are excerpts of a couple of my letters:

Drivers break the law too.  Dear Editor:  Jason Bratcher writes, “[Cyclists] do not adhere to the same traffic laws that motorists adhere to” [“Postmarks,” May 16]. Wow, Mr. Bratcher thinks that all motorists obey the law? Not. Law-breaking drivers are responsible for more than 30,000 collisions per year in the Austin area, and in nearly half of those, a vehicle has to be towed away or someone has to be hospitalized. Nationwide, drivers who run red lights injure about a quarter million people and kill nearly a thousand people every year.  I’ve personally been hit on my bicycle five times when drivers broke the law by running stop signs or failing to yield right-of-way. Guess who hit me by pulling into the bike lane without looking? One of the personal injury attorneys on the back of the phone book. In three other cases the drivers compounded their crime by fleeing the scene after they hit me. (Mr. Bratcher, were you unaware that hit-and-run is a form of breaking the law?) In fact, for several years when I tracked the stats I found that half the serious bike-car collisions in Austin were hit-and-runs. So you’ll pardon me if I don’t get all teary-eyed about drivers seeing cyclists rolling stop signs when I know that half those drivers, if they hit me, are quite willing to leave me for dead.  (Austin Chronicle, 5/23/08)

Cars much more dangerous.  You recently wrote, “Blase and entitled auto drivers are just as much a public threat as cyclists who run stop signs, stealthily sidle past rows of waiting cars, and don’t use their damn hand signals” ["Best of Austin,” Nov. 9]. Not! The truth is that cars are  a much larger threat to public safety than bicycles are or ever could be. Of the 320 cases of failure to stop and render aid in Austin so far this year, or the dozens of deaths of innocent road users on Austin streets, exactly how many do you think were caused by bicyclists? (Hint: zero.) And how many were caused by drivers? All of them! … Both drivers and cyclists break the law, but
the difference is that the drivers are the ones actually killing people.… When you’re out driving
around, which would be worse: getting T-boned by an SUV or by a Schwinn?  (Austin Chronicle, 11/16/12) 

Some more of them:  Bike lanes blocked by neighborhood (10/1/04) • Critical Mass: The Real Story (11/9/01) • Illuminating bike laws (12/1/00) • In defense of Amy Babich (6/30/00)

Referenced in lots of media

• Dozens of newspapers and magazines wrote about my work or quoted me.  These include the New York Times, The Hill, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, and the Get Rich Slowly blog (and, of course, countless local articles in the Austin Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman).
• Rage Against the Machine linked to my site about worldwide Critical Mass rides from their own site.  I was pretty excited about that.
• My sites are cited as sources in seven Wikipedia articles.  (And no, I didn’t place even one of them myself.)
• Interviewed pretty extensively in the Bike Like U Mean It documentary. 

Promoted the League of Bicycling Voters

I bought complimentary memberships in LoBV to the first twenty email list members who replied to a poll. (8/22/10) 

Moved big stuff by bike

I hauled big stuff like furniture by bike regularly to show it could be done.  A friend made a huge trailer and I also used a pedicab for that purpose.  Sometimes I’d haul a couch on a Critical Mass ride for the hell of it but it was hard to keep up.  I could also haul 4x8 sheets of plywood and drywall for remodeling purposes.  I remember one of the loaders at Home Depot marveling at my trailer setup, and my apparent health from hauling heavy stuff, remarking, “I think you’re a really sexy man!”

Radio show

I hosted “The Bicycle Lane” program on KO.OP radio from circa 1996-99.  The show was started by Tommy Eden circa 1995, but soon he insisted I take it over for some reason.  I reported on news and interviewed people like Rick Waring (the Coordinator of the city’s Bicycle Program), and the founders of the Yellow Bike Project when they were first getting started.  For the outro music, I used an obscure remix of Queen’s “Bicycle Race” song.

Donated over $1000 to Chris Riley’s council campaigns

I donated the maximum amount allowable by law ($350) in each of Chris Riley’s 2009 and 2014 runs for city council, which is over $1000 in 10/25 dollars.  My 2009 donation was apparently significant enough to be mentioned in an article the Austin Monitor, and the 2014 donation was part of a matching-donations campaign that I offered.  The total donated is over $1000 in 10/25 dollars.

Bicycle Universe

Realizing that some of my articles were useful for cyclists beyond Austin (e.g., Car-Free Savings Calculator, national safety statistics), I spun them to a separate site, Bicycle Universe, in 2004.  By 2017 I hadn’t kept up with the site for several years and someone offered to buy it, so I sold it for $2000 and used the proceeds to buy a Pac-Man machine.  Part of the sales contract was that if the buyer ever unpublished my content, I had the right to republish it, and as of Dec. 2025 their site is down, so look for the return of the Car-Free Savings Calculator etc. soon!

Made a group-editable Austin Bike Calendar

In the 2000s I set up a page where any and all Austin bike groups could add their events to a one-stop shopping calendar.  When Google Calendar became a thing, I spearheaded a Google Calendar version. (forum post) 

Used a bike for anti-cult work

I’ve worn a lot of hats, not just bike activist, but anti-cult activist, exposing the mind-control cult that I was born into.  It made sense to me to combine my pro-bike and anti-cult passions, so when I was in NYC I rented a “billboard bike” (a pedicab retrofitted to display signage), had anti-cult banners printed, and rode it around Manhattan, including sometimes parking it right in front of the cult headquarters.

Publicized a driver who knocked over a Critical Mass rider

After a driver intentionally knocked over a Critical Mass rider, which could have killed him, cyclist Jeff Lazar shared his video of the incident with me.  He didn’t go to the newspapers, he didn’t go to the TV stations, he came to me, knowing I would handle it.  I did.  I first had to figure out how to get the footage from a videotape onto a computer, and then how to publish it to the web, since there were no web video standards in 2001.  (This predated YouTube by years.)  One witness wrote the Chronicle bizarrely defending the driver, and I was quick to follow up with my own later, pointing to the video, showing that the witness’ claims were pure B.S. (coverage) 

Founded “Courteous Mass”

A common refrain among some cyclists was that the reason they wouldn’t ride on Critical Mass was that the group often ran red lights and were sometimes confrontational with drivers.  As a result, I twice co-founded a “Courteous Mass” ride with a law-abiding, “play nice” theme, circa 1996 with Tommy Eden I think, and in 2001 with Charles McNeil.  The latter ride was listed in an official bicycle planning document of the city of New Orleans. (p. 190)  Each ride was short-lived; after the courteous rides were started, all the hordes who said that the impediment to riding was that CM wasn’t nice enough, were nowhere to be found.  (That would change a few years later with the emergence of the Thursday Social Ride.)

Hosted the first-ever list of events for Bike Month

Lots of what I did with this website was to publish stuff that nobody else was doing.  Towards that end, I published the only online list of events for the first-ever Bike Month in Austin. (1999)

Tried to make a “Superfriends” bike blog

I set up a bike blog with accounts for all the local advocacy groups and prominent activists, so our entire community could post everything all in the same place.  It would be like the Dream Team of Austin Biking, and who wouldn’t want to read it?  Unfortunately almost no one posted anything besides Rob D’Amico.  Here’s the archive. (2008-09) 

Websites galore

Even though they’re listed individually above, here’s a list of the websites I started and hosted:

1. Bicycle Austin (the one you’re reading now)
2. BicycleSafe.com
3. Bicycle Universe
4. Critical-Mass.info (the Worldwide Critical Mass Hub)
5. The page for the local Critical Mass ride
6. The Yellow Bike Project’s very first website
7. The very first web page for Bike Month events
8. Amy Babich’s city council campaign website  
9. The very first website for Clown Dog Bicycles
10. The only page ever for Bike-In Theatre
11. The page for the Cyclecide Bike Rodeo event when it came to Austin 

Other stuff

I rode a tandem with a blind cyclist (Jimmy Hudson), who had put out the call for cycling partners because he couldn’t ride solo.  I also ran a little blurb on this website advertising for other riding partners for him.

I wrote bike-related columns for Austin Cycling News and the Wheatsville Breeze.

I loaned money for medical expenses to my nextdoor neighbor Ed, who was hit-and-run'd while driving his pedicab.

I submitted a major improvement to the cross-country bike maps published by Adventure Cycling:  Got it to go through Austin.  Their route through Texas had Austin as an option, which would add 57 miles to the trip.  My route would go through Austin by default, adding only 6 miles versus the original route which didn’t go through Austin at all.  (But come on, who’s gonna get that close to Austin and not want to go to Austin?!)  For those going to Austin, my route is also safer, because cyclists do the shoulderless 969 just once, not twice.

To promote bike affordability, I set up a way for a local bike shop to list their used inventory on their website, and I wrote the code to automatically pull that list onto this website.

Almost the very first pedicabber in Austin.  In 1996, before Austin had pedicabs, I hired a builder to make a custom cab with seating on the front rather than the back.  The problem was that Austin didn’t have a mechanism to license pedicabs, so they wanted to license me under a combination of the taxicab ordinance and the horse-drawn carriage ordinance.  For example, they were going to make me carry a fire extinguisher, because taxicabs had to carry a fire extinguisher.  I wish I were joking.  We got to an impasse when they required I buy $2000 of insurance (2005 dollars) in order to apply, but wouldn’t give me a hint as to whether they’d approve the app once I got the insurance, and I was reluctant to buy the insurance without being sure I’d get approved, especially as I’d been battling them for months and they weren’t very welcoming.  (I started the effort when Austin still had a helmet law, and they insisted that all my passengers would have to wear helmets.)  I got busy with other things, and then Austin passed a law to license pedicabs (possibly because of my own efforts to get licensed), and after that pedicabs started appearing everywhere.  So I missed my chance to be the very first.

Gave the legendary John Kelso a ride on my pedicab.  He came over to interview me about something, I don’t remember what, and I interested him in my cab and took him for a ride.  This was circa 2001 before any pedicabs were operating in Austin.  He did write some bike-oriented columns after that.

This isn’t advocacy, but I bicycled across Texas: El Paso to Austin, and Austin to Louisiana.

Chronology

1985:  Started bicycling in Austin

1987:  Went car-free

1993:  Joined Critical Mass on one of its first rides.  Joined the associated email list.  I would eventually become the list manager and transform it into the austin-bikes list.

1995:  Started the Bicycle Austin website, as an account on AOL.

1996:  Joined with others in protesting the helmet law.

1996-99:  Hosted The Bicycle Lane radio show on KO.OP.

1997-2004:  Published a popular email/web newsletter, and garnered over 1000 subscribers.  It started as “Bicycle News", becoming “Car-Free Austin”, and then finally “Car-Free World”.

2000:  Moved house entirely by bicycle, including the furniture, and up the hill on Dean Keaton.

2001:  Got Adventure Cycling to update its Southern Tier map with my route, so cross-country bicyclists could more easily go through Austin.

2001:  Published the video of a driver knocking over a Critical Mass driver, and had a letter published in the Chronicle about it.

2003:  Moved house entirely by bicycle again.  At my new place, bought a range/stove and moved it by bike.

2006:  Tried to get the City to ban parking in the bike lanes on Shoal Creek Blvd., but was unsuccessful.  (Some years later, the City did finally make the bike lanes car-free.)

2016:  Received an award from Bike Texas for Advancing Cycling in Austin.

2017:  Sold the Bicycle Universe website and used the proceeds to buy a Pac Mac machine.

2025-26:  Dusted the cobwebs off this website, made it mobile-friendly, fixed the dead links, updated the content.