Harry Fenton wanted safer streets for cyclists. Then he was killed on his bike in a hit-and-run.

Harry Fenton was a cyclist’s kind of cyclist.

He built bikes and had one for almost every occasion — road, mountain, snow, you name it. He had a tandem bike so he and his wife, Ruth Ann, who described herself as “always a little fearful,” could ride together.

“But he was honestly such a safe rider,” Ruth Ann Fenton said, recalling how her husband of 44 years, so keen on sharing the road with cars and pedestrians, quelled those fears. He would insist on using hand signals and his bike bells, and not running red lights, sometimes to the chagrin of the cyclists behind them, eager to pass. He was “one with his bike,” she said.

In his younger years, Harry Fenton would ride for hours on end, and the 67-year-old was not slowing down in retirement. He would routinely ride from his Washington Square neighborhood to Fairmount Park to do his “loops.” It was there, at the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Avenue of the Republic during his morning loops, that he was killed in a hit-and-run crash near the city’s Parkside section on Tuesday.

Police said Fenton was riding east on Avenue of the Republic when a driver heading north on Belmont Avenue, an artery that cuts through the western side of the park, struck him. Police said two vehicles were traveling at high speeds before the crash, and a Dodge Charger was seized that day, but no arrests have been made.

In the days after Fenton’s death, his family has focused on burial arrangements and supporting his five grandchildren. It was only two weeks ago that Fenton took them to Hawk Mountain in the Lehigh Valley to hike and to see the birds of prey. Though Fenton often wrangled the children to family concerts and children’s plays, the trip combined his love of family with the outdoors.

For more than 20 years, Fenton had hiked portions of the almost 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail every summer. Fenton had traversed about 80% of the trail as of this summer, said his eldest son, Dylan Fenton.

“He won’t be completing that and it’s just a really sad thing,” said Dylan Fenton, his voice trailing. “He had this commitment and he wasn’t able to complete it.”

The family is also taking comfort in sharing memories of Harry Fenton, who they say could be honest to a fault. The former lawyer was not afraid to ruffle feathers if it meant doing the right thing.

Fenton’s daughter, Hallie Fenton, was in high school when she learned that an exchange student from Poland was being made to feel uncomfortable by her host family. She did what she always did when she needed help: She called her dad.

“She had only been in our town for a couple of weeks, and my dad had never met her, but immediately, in a steady voice, he said, ‘Have her pack up all of her things, and we will be there in 30 minutes,’” Fenton’s daughter recalled.

Fenton did not care about potential social repercussions for intervening and quietly handled the pushback from the host family, letting the exchange student stay with his family for a year.

He loved rabble-rousers and was a bit of one himself — he had a “wall of heroes” in his Lebanon County law office that included Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges. He practiced criminal law because he believed everyone deserved a competent defense. When he saw a double-decker bus blocking a bike lane near Independence Hall, he sprang into action and joined Philly Bike Action last year.

Fenton filed a Right to Know request and emailed a City Council member, said Caleb Holtmeyer, cofounder and board chair of Philly Bike Action. “We also got the [Philadelphia Parking Authority] involved and told them this is not legal or safe.”

Even in retirement, he felt compelled to help people, volunteering at Philadelphia Legal Assistance, aiding families who could not afford attorneys in navigating custody paperwork. He had been volunteering for years, always early, always dressed up in a blazer, said those who knew him.

Fenton was not a guy who engaged in small talk, said Sophia Parsons, a paralegal at the center’s family law unit, but he was reliable. Some younger volunteers and law students at the center jokingly described him as a “grumpy Mr. Rogers,” working on his crossword during downtime, but looked to him as a well of knowledge.

“Harry managed to really walk the line of being very, very direct, and being able to tell people the truth, but in a way that was still very respectful to [the family’s] autonomy and their situation,” Parsons said. “I was always very struck by that.”

Even in death, Fenton will embody his beliefs. Ever the environmentalist — his first date with his wife was a viewing of an Appalachian strip mining documentary — Fenton believed in supporting local farmers, composting, and conserving resources in little ways, such as by limiting his use of the air conditioner. Since his 20s, he knew he wanted his burial to leave as small a carbon footprint as possible. He will skip the embalming and be buried in a pine box at Laurel Hill Cemetery West, an area where he often went for bike rides with his wife.

Philly Bike Action is juggling its advocacy with its grief. The group often springs into action after a traffic death, calling for infrastructure changes, and Fairmount Park is a prime candidate for improvements. According to the city’s calculations, Belmont Avenue is part of the 12% of Philadelphia streets that account for 80% of traffic deaths and serious injuries.

Holtmeyer expects to begin work on a petition in the coming weeks, as the group figures out which safety improvements to press for in that section of the park. Redesigning intersections, reducing lanes, and even advocating for a ban on park traffic are possibilities.

Fenton’s family hopes that his story — rooted in the belief that sharing the road is part of the social contract — will raise awareness on the issue.

Still, Fenton’s son Dylan worries about how little the family has come to know about the accident in the days following.

“There are just so many victims of hit and runs that go totally, totally unsolved,” he said. “It doesn’t inspire hope.”

Services for Harry Fenton are slated for Tuesday at Laurel Hill Cemetery West. Visitation begins at 9:30 a.m. with the funeral scheduled for 10:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Philly Bike Action.