Ainslie O'Neil grew up near bicycles. Her mother, Cindy Stepp, would haul Ainslie and her siblings to work with her in a bike trailer. O'Neil soon graduated to her own bicycle, and stayed on one for years.
"She didn't just do it because it was transportation," Stepp said. "She did it because she loved it. She was an active girl and we rode together frequently. I got an e-bike finally because I couldn't keep up with her anymore."
O'Neil would ride year-round. On a sunny Sunday in December 2022, she was riding to her mother's house in east Denver. She told Stepp she'd be there between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. so they could walk their dogs together before a family dinner.
But by 5 p.m., O'Neil had not yet arrived.
"I had a very, very bad feeling," Stepp said.
Stepp checked her location on her cell phone -- it showed O'Neil as being at a police station in downtown Denver. She sent her son, who lived nearby, to the station to check. Shortly after, a squad car dropped him at her front door.
"He walked into my kitchen and he just crumpled," Stepp said. "I knew what had happened. I don't think he told me. I said to him, 'She's dead, isn't she?'"
Stepp soon learned the basic outline of what happened. O'Neil was crossing Federal Boulevard on West 35th Avenue when a driver struck her. The driver was a juvenile and was charged with careless driving that resulted in death, records show.
"She had died instantly," Stepp said of her daughter. "They found her bike in two pieces."
O'Neil was 32 years old.
Stepp told Denverite her story at a press conference about Denver's failing Vision Zero program.
The city of Denver just released an update of its plan to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. It calls for significantly lowering speed limits and upping automated enforcement across the city, installing hundreds of miles of new bike lanes and many other measures. Denver's next mayor will get to decide whether or not to move forward with such ideas.
Advocates for street safety, including Stepp, spoke at the site of O'Neil's death Thursday to pressure Denver's current and future city leaders to do more.
"We need leaders who will step up and make the investments it will take to eliminate these types of fatalities," Stepp said.
Stepp readily admits she doesn't know what the right answers are, but she hopes to to be part of the solution. Because she and her family still ride, even though every journey carries with it a thread of sadness.
That sadness will probably always be with her, Stepp said. But she doesn't feel any guilt for introducing her daughter to bicycling in the first place.
"I wouldn't change a thing," Stepp said. "She loved it. I'm glad that she had 32 years of happy bike riding."
