WACO, TX — The biking community in Waco consists of hundreds of people.
In fact, the club added an additional 90 people during the pandemic.
When one of their own dies in a cycling accident, they do all they can to honor them.
“I was the only one with dry eyes,” David Morrow, the advocacy director of the Waco Bike Club reminisced when one of his peers, a Baylor student, died after being hit by a motor vehicle. “It’s very difficult for everyone to realize that their son died right there in the street.”
It’s no doubt the club rides with one another until the wheels fall off.
“Bicycling is one of the things that most people learn as a kid and it’s fun,” Morrow explained. “And you do it with your friends and it evolves from there.”
They lost one of their own this month.
66-year-old Tim Eaton, an Air Force veteran who was hit and killed by a motorist on Chapel Road in Waco.
“After this is all said and done, the family’s left here to deal with all this,” the president of the club, David Blake said. “And it’s great for the cycling community to remember a fallen cyclist.”
How do they remember him? With a recycled bicycle Morrow had lying around his house in case he was in need of spare parts.
He brought it back to life with a coat of white paint, while family and friends secured flowers of all colors and personal items on the bike.
“Unfortunately, I had a can of white paint for this purpose,” Morrow said.
It’s chain is locked to a telephone pole near the incident.
The memorial is called a ghost bike; it’s a common memorial for those across the country who die in cycling accidents.
”A ghost bike can help drivers think about sharing the road and being careful,” Morrow said.
Morrow said it's the third of its kind the club put out in the past six years. He says cyclists risk their lives everyday sharing the road with those driving cars.
“Cyclists ride down the road too and you know we always have to keep and eye out just as much as everybody else does,” Blake said.
With the help from the city and the Texas Department of Transportation, they’re hoping to create safer roadways for everyone.
“I see mothers pushing their baby carriages in the street, because there’s no sidewalk,” Morrow said with urgency. “That’s a simple thing to fix.”
