On May 4, 2003, Larry Schwartz rode his bicycle down an empty road in Dallas, Texas.

Schwartz was a stringent proponent of safe cycling, always equipped with the right equipment and aware of his surroundings. He was also a noted endurance cycler, making a name for himself in the home state of Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner.

As he rode on, a bus approached from behind.

In all his years of cycling, he'd never had an accident.

As it passed, a mirror struck Schwartz from behind, killing him instantly.

The funeral was lined with fellow cyclists. Schwartz was a friend to everyone, a relaxed and open individual who would always say yes to a ride.

Chris Phelan, a local runner and tri-athlete had developed a close relationship with Schwartz over the years.

At the funeral, Phelan approached the leaders of the Texas cycling community.

"This isn't right,” he said to anyone that would listen. "We should do something about this.”

On May 11, seven days after the death of Schwartz, Phelan sat by his computer. He watched for emails and listened for the phone to ring. He waited patiently for something to happen.

At 10 p.m., he grew angry.

He logged into his email and began sending out messages.

He had decided he was going to travel to White Rock Lake, a reservoir in east Dallas and one of Schwartz's favourite areas to ride.

He was going to ride 15-km around the lake, slowly, in memory of Schwartz. A ride of silence. He was going to find closure.

Phelan left his house on May 21 and headed to the reservoir for 7 p.m. He was joined by his wife and family friend, Mike Keel. They didn't want Phelan to ride by himself.

As the trio approached the area, they drove up and over a small hill. Over a thousand cyclists greeted them on the other side.

A Channel-8 news helicopter circled in the air, a local film crew went to work on the ground, the police unsure of what was transpiring, arrived with their sirens blaring.

The fire department followed.

An officer approached Phelan.

"What's going on here?” he asked.

"We're going to ride around the lake,” Phelan replied.

The officer, standing with his hands on his hips, surveyed the scene. Looking right to left, before staring back at Phelan.

"Alright. You need an escort?”

"That would be great,” Phelan said.

As the group waited for instruction, he realized he needed to take charge.

"There were all these cyclist just standing there,” he told the Star from Garland, Texas on Thursday afternoon.

"There was no itinerary, there was no infrastructure, there was nothing but a thousand cyclists standing around with traffic at a near standstill.

"We're going to ride 12-miles an hour,” he shouted to the crowd. A figure he admits he just made up on the spot.

"We're not going to talk and we're going to ride together as a group.”

He pulled a few cyclists to the front of the pack.

He told them their jobs were to make sure no one passes, that the group stays together.

They climbed onto their bikes and head out, in silence.

"You could hear a pin drop,” Phelan says, reflecting on the scene.

Within the first mile, the silence was overtaken by emotion.

"You could hear sobbing and crying,” says Phelan. "It was full of emotion. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.”

Phelan spent much of the next year saying no.

People wanted the rides to continue but he wasn't interested.

"I had found my closure,” he says. "I started telling people this is a onetime only event, it just happened, we can't recreate something that was spontaneous. The emotions, the feelings, the whole event happening simultaneously without planning.”

In January, he finally said yes.

On May 19, 2004, Phelan returned to White Rock Lake.

This time he was greeted by over 2,500 cyclists.

In 50 locations across North America, from Honolulu to Montreal, cyclists gathered to hold their own Ride of Silence.

On May 18, 2011, the Ride of Silence happened for the ninth consecutive year.

This time, 50 U.S. States, seven contents and 322 locations worldwide took part.

Phelan says he has a hard time explaining why the event spread so quickly.

"I can theorize that it hit a nerve,” he says.

"That cyclists everywhere thought they were isolated and it wasn't until the Ride of

Silence that we realized we're all connected, that deaths happen everywhere.”

This past Wednesday, for the first time, the territory held it's own Ride of Silence.

Seventeen cyclists gathered at the SS Klondike in downtown Whitehorse at 7p.m.

They dressed in black. The mood was somber.

"Thank you for coming,” Guillaume Levesque announced to the crowd.

Levesque organized the ride along with Valerie Girard.

They found inspiration in the untimely deaths of three cyclists in Montreal in May 2010.

The cyclists, Sandra de la Garza Aguilar, Lyn Duhamel and Christine Deschamps, members of the Saint-Lambert Triathlon Club, were training for an Ironman competition, when they were hit from behind by a pickup truck in Rougemont.

"It touched the community,” says Levesque. "Everyone realized how vulnerable we are when we're on the road. Here in Whitehorse, the drivers are very respectful but there's always that one per cent.”

Levesque says the ride is not a protest; it's about awareness and dialogue.

"You don't have to wait for casualties to get involved in something like this,” he says.

"The goal is to honour those who have died or have been injured and also raise awareness that we are on the road and we're legally allowed to share the road.”

Each year, after the ride is completed, Phelan sits at his kitchen table, physically and emotionally exhausted, and questions how many more rides he can do.

"By the end of it, I'm drained, I'm worn out,” he says.

"But my wife always assures me there is a reason this ride exists. The great majority of us know somebody who has been hit and injured or killed. People do get closure from this. It's significant.”

Phelan says one of the most interesting aspects of the Ride of Silence is the autonomy.

"Each ride is different,” he says. "In Nebraska they have a hearse that rides in front of the bikers. In Montreal, they have two rides there and they leave on opposite ends of the city.

Here in Dallas, bagpipes play Amazing Grace beforehand. Some of the places list off the people who have been killed there.”

To have a Ride of Silence, there is only a small list of criteria that must be met.

The riders must proceed slowly, not exceeding 20-km an hour, they must start at 7 p.m. and be held on the third Wednesday of May. Lastly, they must remain silent.

This year marked the tenth Ride of Silence and what started as a quiet bike ride in solace has turned into an international movement.

"We can't stop until people aren't getting killed on bikes,” says Phelan. "The more locations that are out there, the louder this gets. Eventually, that silence will roar.”