Thirteen years ago, on a late morning in early May, I was biking on Dexter-­Chelsea Rd. when I heard a car coming up behind me. Over my shoulder I saw a white SUV. I was as far to the side as I could be; there was good visibility, no oncoming traffic, and plenty of room to give me space as it passed. But the driver didn’t move over. The SUV’s side mirror missed my handlebar by a fraction of an inch. The wind currents sucked me violently in towards the vehicle. Adrenaline flooded my body. Heart pounding, legs shaking, my mind flashed to my children, who needed me, to my husband, and my mother.

Thirteen years ago, I narrowly escaped being hit on Dexter-Chelsea Rd. On August 26 of this year, Karen McKeachie was not so lucky. Cycling eastward along the route with two training partners, she was killed by a westbound truck that was passing another vehicle. Her two companions were able to swerve out of the way in time to avoid impact.

McKeachie, sixty-three, was a powerhouse of a woman. Beloved mentor to many aspiring female athletes, she won seven world triathlon championships. For three years running, she won two national championships in triathlon in a single weekend. She was inducted into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame in 2014.

McKeachie was far more than an athlete. She created the first-ever women’s bike saddle in 1985 by cutting away critical areas from a standard seat—her innovation is now the industry standard. She was a musician who played French horn with two community bands. She was an environmentalist who helped preserve 240 acres of land in Scio Township. She was a tinkerer who could take apart and repair almost anything. And she was an altruist. “If someone needed help with something or if something was broken, Karen was there. She was a remarkable person,” says her husband, Lew Kidder.

McKeachie was not the only cyclist hit this year along the roughly seven-and-a-half-mile road that links Dexter and Chelsea. One person was struck on March 26 near the Freer Rd. intersection. On July 23, two cyclists out for an early morning ride with a group of about twenty were sideswiped by a black Lincoln SUV in a hit-and-run incident. State police are looking for the Lincoln, which had a reported partial plate number “SEL.” The vehicle lost its right-side mirror from the impact. State police from the Brighton post continue to investigate McKeachie’s death as well.

With a bachelor’s from MSU and a master’s from U-M in civil engineering, McKeachie knew roads. Before leaving the field to pursue competitive athletics, she worked for five years as a civil engineer at the vehicle testing lab at the Chrysler Proving Grounds, the U-M’s Highway Safety Research Institute, the Michigan Department of Transportation, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The night before the fatal accident ­McKeachie was out taking pictures for the “Just Fix the Roads” website she designed to support the road funding millage on the Washtenaw County ballot in November. Kidder, who was with her, was the only civilian on the ad hoc committee set up by the county board of commissioners to assess the roads. Kidder warned her that night to be careful with the traffic, but a fearless ­McKeachie responded, “Listen, this is what I used to do.”

The public-spirited couple worked without pay to support the millage because their background gave them an intimate knowledge of road conditions and the urgency of repairs, the cost of which rises geometrically when maintenance is postponed. “Every increment you delay, the cost of fixing the road goes up,” says Kidder. “And it doesn’t go up in straight incline. The smartest thing to do is keep our roads in good shape. Not only are the roads better, it’s good money management.”

At press time, the road millage issue is yet to be decided. If it’s passed, ­Washtenaw County Parks would receive 20 percent to be used for off-road trails. This money would build safe mixed-use paths for pedestrians and cyclists—with the Dexter-Chelsea route among the top priorities. Huron Waterloo Pathways Initiative, which is spearheading the trail development, includes the route in the proposed forty-four-mile regional loop trail, which would connect Dexter, Chelsea, and the Waterloo and Pinckney recreation areas. Jeff Hardcastle, chair of HWPI, says the feasibility study examining engineering and approximate costs for the Dexter-Chelsea leg has been completed. Hardcastle cautions that this is a “complex section of trail” but says, “Our objective is to get construction started on a portion in 2017.” He points to a 2016 MSU study that projects that the route would become one of the most heavily traveled bike trails in the state.

HWPI has partnered with other local nonprofits—notably Legacy Land Conservancy and the 5 Healthy Towns ­Foundation—and with the Washtenaw County Parks Border to Border Trail initiative to make the extensive system of bike paths, including Dexter-Chelsea, a reality. Private money is needed to supplement public funding, and HWPI is actively fundraising (huron-waterloo-pathways.org). A number of local businesses have stepped forward as sponsors, but Hardcastle also stresses the importance of individual sponsorships, which, even if small, show support and help get government funding.

Dexter-Chelsea Rd. has no paved shoulder. Bicycles and cars must share the well-traveled route, which is used by roughly forty to eighty Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society members on any given Saturday in temperate months, says AABTS’s Joe Pavlovich, and up to several hundred nonmembers. A bicyclist is basically a bag of jelly with bones inside going along at ten miles per hour; she doesn’t have much chance against two tons of steel barreling along at fifty. According to the Michigan Secretary of State, “A good rule when passing a bicyclist is to allow at least three feet of space between your side mirror and the rider. Five feet of space is recommended for higher-speed roads or if a group of riders is present. Large vehicles should allow even more space when passing.”

And every driver needs to be vigilant behind the wheel. “I used to run along rural roads, but now I just do laps around the track at the high school,” says Chelsea police chief Ed Toth. “There is just way too much distracted driving.”