Essential riders are individuals who rely on a bicycle as a primary, indispensable mode of transportation due to constraints on mobility. Legacies of uneven development and disproportionate wealth accumulation along race and class lines result in social, financial, or political barriers that restrict the mobility of essential riders. Responses to racially biased transportation planning practices call for equitable and meaningful participation from underrepresented communities. Equitable public participation necessitates local knowledge, or tacit information known to an individual through experience, as legitimate and valuable information in decision making processes. I collaborated with BikeAthens, a community bicycle organization, to listen to the experiences of essential riders in Athens-Clarke County, GA. While essential riders in Athens-Clarke County did not convey profound input for transportation planning purposes per se, their perceptions of navigating transportation networks made primarily for automobiles underscore the need to minimize negative impacts of transportation planning decisions on underrepresented communities.