Ride of Silence honors bicyclists killed on Kansas City roads

A line of about 100 bicyclists rode slowly and in silence Wednesday evening through the streets around the Brookside neighborhood.

They rode in honor of all cyclists killed or injured on Kansas City area roads, and in solidarity with similar groups across the U.S. and around the world who did the same Wednesday.

Led by the Cycling Kansas City Race Team, members of the Kansas City bicycling community began their ride about 7 p.m. at West 62nd Street and Brookside Boulevard. Before starting out, they read aloud a list of names of more than 70 cyclists who have been killed or injured in the Kansas City area over the past 25 years.

“Most of the names we read are from the area,” said Mitchell Krasnopoler of Leawood. “There’s also a few names, people like my son, who was killed outside the area. But I live here, so we read his name.”

Krasnopoler’s son Nathan was a student at Johns Hopkins University when he died in an accident in Baltimore in 2011.

Wednesday’s event was the 10th annual Ride of Silence in Kansas City. The slow round-trip procession goes from Brookside to Westport and back to Brookside. The ride takes about an hour and is not meant to exceed 10 mph.

Along with all those whose names were read, the cyclists also remembered the more recent death of Anthony Saluto in Kansas City.

Saluto died April 3 when he was struck by a car while riding west on Independence Avenue near Lydia Avenue. The eastbound car swerved for an unknown reason and struck him.

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Ride of Silence honors bicyclists killed on Kansas City roads."