Who’s Who in Austin Biking

Last update: December 26, 2025

This list is mostly advocates I’m familiar with when I was active, from the 1990s throug mid-2000s.  If you’d like to suggest anyone who’s missing (past or present), then let me know

Please also remember advocates we’ve lost.

Amy Babich

A car-free cyclist, Amy is somewhat of a celebrity.  In 1995, she started writing numerous letters to the Austin Chronicle complaining about the lack of safe roadways, and the danger and environmental destructiveness of automobiles.  Her example has brought other cyclists out of the woodwork to write in as well—as well as inciting the ire of angry car-loving letter-writers.  (I think it was her very first letter that elicited a dismissive reply from another reader, that I replied to with a letter of my own; the critic, Reza, said, "The average person won't ride a bicycle," to which I said, "Hey Reza, congratulations on being 'average'!) 

Amy's suggestions were sometimes bizarre (movable parking garages?!), but she kept biking issues at the forefront.  It was such a thing that her letter-writing was featured in the documentary Bike Like U Mean It.

She ran for City Council in May 2000 (and I ran her campaign website for her), but was unsuccessful.  She and Mike Librik ran a recumbent shop together out of their home in Hyde Park.

Annick Beaudet

Manager of the City's Bicycle Program from 2006-13.  She had worked as a staffer in the office 1997-2000.

Bobby Sledge

Bobby was a driving force behind the League of Bicycling Voters (LoBV), a group initially established to fight the local helmet ordinance, and which went beyond that by making bicyclists an important political constituency in the 1996 City Council elections.  LoBV then became Bike Austin, which then merged with two other local transportation groups.

Charles Gandy

Gandy founded Bike Texas (then the Texas Bicycle Coalition) in the 80's and served as its executive director into the 90s.  He's a former member of the Texas Legislature and ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Primary for the U.S. Senate.  He was a consultant for the redesign of Shoal Creek Blvd., and many cyclists criticized his plan which allowed cars to keep parking in the bicycle lanes.

David Baker

Dave is one of the original founders of the Yellow Bike Project (YBP).  He helped start the YBP while he was the manager of Bikes Not Bombs(BnB).  Shortly after launching the YBP, Dave left BnB to devote more time to the YBP.  Around 2004, he moved out of Austin.  As of 2025, he's running a community bike program in New Mexico.  I’m grateful that he once helped me move.

David Sully

David has been very active in bicycle advocacy work in Austin, and served on the City Planning Commission from 1994-99.Some of his bike-related accomplishments on the commission are listed below. In 2000 he served on the Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee(along with cyclist Chris Riley, who was elected to the City Council in 2009),which monitors how the City spends the Nov. 1998 bond money. He has been a frequent speaker at public hearings, supporting bicycle projects.  On the Planning Commission:

• Helped stop the routine granting of variances to omit sidewalks and street connections.
• Drafted much, if not most, of the commission's Smart Growth suggestions that new subdivisions follow grid pattern streets with bike/ped connections wherever streets don't connect, with explicit verbiage on subdivision plans stating how bike & pedestrian travel would be carried out within the development.
• Sent the Bicycle Plan back to City Staff to have them add text to describe how destinations can be approached from north,east, south, and west, and what barriers existed if approach is not possible.
• Helped shape attitudes and perceptions in the development and planning community by riding his bike to almost every meeting he attended. (If he didn't ride, he walked or car-pooled.)

Doug Ballew

Doug Ballew is controversial for getting Austin's widely unpopular helmet ordinance enacted by City Council.  Ballew also lobbied the local daily newspaper to mention whether cyclists were wearing helmets in articles about cyclist injuries.  This angered many local cyclists who were trying to get the Statesman to do the opposite, since media harping on whether the cyclists' had helmets on gives the impression that unhelmeted cyclists are to blame when they get hit, even if drivers are really at fault.  Ballew also got the city to censor its link to this website, ostensibly onthe grounds that I advocate illegal activity (I don't), but more likely because he's upset about this writeup of him.  Ballew is/was a Public Health Educator for the Travis County SuperCyclist Project, a part of the Health and Human Services Department, educating the public (mostly children) about bicycle safety and organizing programs to distribute free or low-cost helmets.

Doug McLaren

Doug maintains a website with pictures from dozens and dozens of local social cycling rides.  He also helped moderate the email list, and new the web forum, where he’s far and away the most consistently helpful poster (and he also lends that effort on r/BikingATX on Reddit).

Eric Anderson

Eric is a founding member of the Yellow Bike Project and has been active in Critical Mass.  He came up with the idea for the Crosstown Bikeway and lobbied for it extensively, resulting in approval by the City and funding support from the federal government.   He helped organize the 2-01 Austin Bike Summit.  He's also been critical of my efforts with this website, accusing me of publishing misinformation, and he removed himself from the email list.

Gayle Cummins

Gayle is the former director of the Bike Texas (then the Texas Bicycle Coalition), a statewide advocacy group.  When she took over she made a strong effort to refocus and revitalize the organization.

Jeremy Rosen

Jeremy is the local funky bike builder, and a cofounder of the Austin Bike Zoo.  He builds longjohns, dump trikes, high bikes, recumbents, and more.

Lane Wimberly

Championed car-free bike lanes on Shoal Creek Blvd., and chaired the Infrastructure Committee of the Street Smarts Task Force in the 2000s. (source)  I know he’s done a bunch of other stuff but the specifics escape my memory.

Linda DuPriest

Moved to Austin in Feb. 1999 to take the job of Austin's third Bicycle Coordinator, overseeing the city's Bicycle Program.  DuPriest kept a low profile, refusing to communicate with the cycling community by posting to the email list, writing a short monthly column for Cycling News, or appearing on my radio program The Bicycle Lane (all things her predecessors did).  She left the position in Feb. 2004, with an impressive list of improved roadways to her credit.

Leslie Luciano

In 2004 Bicycle Sports Shop created a full-time Directory of Advocacy position and hired Leslie to fill it. Since then, Leslie has worked with local, state, and national groups, and has received Trek's "Advocate of the Year" award in 2009, 2010, and 2011.  Here’s an interview about her efforts (2012).

Michael Bluejay

That’s me!  I run this website and its discussion forum, published a bunch of other websites (BicycleSafe.com, Critical-Mass.info, and Bicycle Universe), pushed for car-free bike lanes on Shoal Creek Blvd., did a radio show about local biking issues, had cycling-related columns in Austin Cycling News and the Wheatsville Breeze, and a bunch of other stuff.

Michael Zakes

Michael Zakes owned the (now-defunct) Waterloo Cycles and served on the City's Urban Transportation Commission from 1998-2000.

Mike Dahmus

Mike is best known for his well-informed transportation blog, which pulls no punches.  He was appointed to the Urban Transportation Commission in March 2000 by Councilmember Daryl Slusher, then removed by Slusher in Feb. 2005, probably because Dahmus was critical of the commuter rail proposal for being overhyped.  Fellow UTC member Patrick Goetz said of his efforts, "As far as concrete action goes, Tommy [Eden] and Mike have done more to further bicycle transportation issues in the last couple of years than everyone else in Austin combined times 4."  Chris Riley, who as councilmember got it to be city policy to install the now-ubiquitous pedestrian crossings and the separators on bike lanes, credits spirited discussions between Dahmus, Patrick Goetz, and me to inspire him to pursue bike advocacy.

Mike Librik

Mike was a driving force behind the Bicycle Advisory Council, and served on the City's Parks and Recreation board.  He owned the (now-defunct) Easy Street Recumbents bike shop, originally with Amy Babich.  Walking the walk, he was car-free for decides.  When I retired from hosting the local bike radio show on KO.OP in 1999, he took over, renaming it "The Right of Way".

Nathan Wilkes

Nathan is one of the unsung heroes, quietly designing facilities as a staffer in the City’s Bicycle Program.  He’s probably best known for the incredibly detailed comparison of 15 different ways to implement protected bike lanes (2014), which has been cited and used by planners in other cities, like Philadelphia.

Patrick Goetz

Served on the City's Urban Transportation Commission as a consensus appointee, until being replaced by the City Council in July 2008.  Served on the Triangle Traffic Committee in '98, and organized to repeal the helmet ordinance with the League of Bicycling Voters in '96-'97.  Chris Riley, who as councilmember got it to be city policy to install the now-ubiquitous pedestrian crossings and the separators on bike lanes, credits spirited discussions between Dahmus, Patrick Goetz, and me to inspire him to pursue bike advocacy.

Preston Tyree

Preston was past president of the Austin Cycling Assocation, member of the board of the League of American Bicyclists, Education Director of Bike Texas (then the Texas Bicycle Coalition), a certified Effective Cycling Instructor, and a participant in a government-funded program to develop a nation-wide bicycle safety education curriculum for the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, AMONG OTHER THINGS!  At age 72 he was helping seniors ride trikes in Mueller.  Here’s his bike-related resumé through 2006.

Rick Waring

Rick was the first coordinator of the city's Bicycle & Pedestrian Program, from around 1995-1997. During his tenure, the program got Part I of the Bicycle Plan passed by the Austin City Council.  Waring fiercely criticized council for underfunding the Bike Program and roadway improvements.

Rob D'Amico

Rob was driving force behind the 2006 resurrection of the League of Bicycling Voters, initially to fight the possible return of the helmet law, but then which became a general advocacy group in its own right.

Roger Baker

Perhaps nobody is as knowledgeable about the politics of local transportation planning as Roger Baker.  He's been following these issues for decades, and he knows all about broken promises and the money trail.  Dave Dobbs wrote this of him on March 22, 2000:

Mr. Baker has been a tireless proponent of transportation alternatives for over 25 years.  I have known Roger for 21 of these years, and can attest from personal experience that he has spent tens of thousands of dollars, and worked nearly full time trying to promote sustainable sensible transportation in this city.  When I met Roger in 1979 he had no car and rode the UT shuttle bus. He did not have a driver's license, did not know how to drive and only became a car driver about 1984 when his mother gave him her used 1972 Buick.  And as Mike Dahmus has already observed there are constraints on living a "pure" existence in a city designed for cars and little else.  As a regular cyclist and bus rider, I often find my car my only real choice given what I must do each day.  Roger's in-depth research, numerous written tracts (published and unpublished), articles in local print media, and public testimony before various bodies politic have been at the very center of Austin's alternative transportation advocacy.  Roger served as a citizen volunteer member on the City/County Mass Transit Authority task force in 1982-83 and helped write the report that recommended (successfully) that Capital Metro be formed.  As the co-chair of a community group, Austinites for Public Transit, he single handedly published a monthly newsletter for over two years. Together Roger and I, through another group called the Austin Transportation Task Force led the fight in 1985 and 1986 against the outer loop and the Koenig Lane Freeway.  Additionally, he served as a board member of Austin Crossroads which filed two lawsuits against the ATS in the late 80's one of which we won on the open meetings question.  Mr. Baker was an Urban Transportation Commissioner for a number of years and led the UTC Taxi study subcommittee and served on the Capital Metro Citizens Advisory Committee in the 1980s and 90s.  The list of advocacy activities, including some acts of civil disobedience at great risk to himself, go on and on.

Tommy Eden

My introduction to Tommy was seeing him in a photo on the front page of the Austin American-Statesman about Critical Mass, perhaps the first Critical Mass ride in Austin.  It looked as that Tommy was veering away from cops because he was asserting his right to the road.  It was inspiring, and I got my schedule changed at work so I could start riding on Critical Mass.  Here's the video clip of my telling this story in the Bike Like U Mean It documentary.

Tommy has been a dedicated cycle commuter for decades.  He served on the city's Urban Transportation Commission for over five years, ending circa 2005, and has been active in the Bicycle Advisory Council and the UTC Bicycle Subcommittee,.  He started the Bicycle Lane radio program on KO.OP in the 90s, helped start a "lite" version of Critical Mass to try appeal to riders who wouldn't ride on Critical Mass otherwise, and wrote regularly for Austin's Cycling News.  Of his efforts, fellow UTC member Patrick Goetz said "As far as concrete action goes, Tommy and Mike [Dahmus] have done more to further bicycle transportation issues in the last couple of years than everyone else in Austin combined times 4." (more...)

Tom Wald

Was the executive director of the League of Bicycling Voters (later becoming Bike Texas).