Cycling in Tulsa

It’s come a long way, but still has miles to go

I started riding a bike in the early 2000s. Riding to work, my route took me through some of Tulsa’s nicest neighborhoods. My ride was not only scenic and enjoyable, but a great way for me to exercise before work. Some of my buds were racers and got me into riding some of the group rides around town. I loved it and felt like being a bird in a flock, so I started to race. Back then, there were maybe three or so teams you could join if you wanted to race. The races were held in small towns that were willing to shut down their streets or parks. The scenes were sparse and kind of lonely and you had to really be into it to get there.

Today, there are 19 clubs in the Tulsa INCOG area registered with USA cycling. We close our busiest streets in our most populated areas to hold races. We also utilize local parks like Keystone, Mohawk, Owen, and Turkey Mountain for these healthy lifestyle events. You can race every weekend of the year if you feel up to it.

Some say that Tulsa’s signature event is the Saint Francis Tulsa Tough. It’s crazy that Tulsa is known nationally for a bike race—seems a little backwards for our not-so-cycling-friendly state.

During the spring and summer on Mondays and Wednesdays, Tulsa cyclists gather informally to pedal through the Osage hills. We used to all ride together and now we have too many groups to count, but you can ride with any of them. I don’t think there is a better, more encouraging or welcoming recreational riding community in the country. 

One recently developed program is the Tulsa Public Schools after-school Bike Clubs. The clubs connect elementary school kids with confident cyclists. The kiddos learn bike safety, bike handling, simple maintenance, STEM lessons, and the freedom of riding bikes. The volunteers and students eventually take field trips to places of interest in the community surrounding the schools. The kids are incentivized with the promise of a bike at the end of the year. The after-school clubs encourage the kids to get to school and the bonds made in Bike Club are strong.

The Tulsa Hub is another super cool local, program-based bike service. They offer bike-related education to adults that may not have the resources for a car. It empowers these individuals by giving them transportation options and making Tulsa more accessible to everyone. It’s been great to see the Hub grow—they’ve put so many people on bikes! 

But while Tulsa’s ridership has increased, the infrastructure supporting it has not. A-to-B connections in this town are hard. Our trail system is great, but it could stand improved connections. Currently, it gets you west, north, and south. Filling in the gaps with strong bike infrastructure—such as dedicated bike lanes—would greatly help our town’s connectivity via the bike. The costs related implementing proper bike and pedestrian infrastructure may be large, but if we look way down the road at the costs of maintaining our cars, and the systems that support them versus those associated with bikes, we may determine it is cheaper. Bike transit doesn’t damage the roads or the environment, and it provides a natural calorie burner.

The Tulsa region does have a bike and pedestrian master plan, called GoPlan; you can look it up at www.tulsatrc.org. 

While you're waiting for more improvements, you can: A) Ride you bike to work once a week, month, year… Ok how about once? And B) Tell your city councilor our city needs to provide more transportation access for everyone.

Tulsa has a ton of bike “stuff” going on, more than we give ourselves credit for. People like me will always ride a bike in Tulsa, but we need to make it easy, safe, and accessible for cyclists and pedestrians whenever we can. With our bike momentum, a robust cycling/pedestrian infrastructure could make Tulsa the “bike capital” of the Midwest.