West Hartford Bicycle Beat

Time to ring some bicycle bells and oil your chains because Wheel Fun Day, West Hartford’s First Official Bicycle Festival, is coming to town on Sunday, May 19, from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 

It will start at 8:00 a.m. with a Breakfast for Bikers in Bishops Corner in the Marshall’s parking lot, where riders will receive free bagels, coffee and other drinks. The group will then ride together down Main Street, officially called the Bike Down Main, to celebrate our effort to continue to reclaim more space for cyclists and pedestrians on town streets. We’ll ride two abreast (and wear helmets) and pull into the West Hartford Town Hall parking lot, where visitors will find:

 *  Bicycle shop booths where each shop will showcase  a specific skill, such as how to change your own tire
*   A performance at 11:00 a.m. by Chris Poulos, literally a WORLD CHAMPION STUNT RIDER, who will perform for an hour
* Live music throughout the day
* Food and drink
* Wellness booths
* Outdoor spinning demonstrations
* Jugglers, riders on vintage bicycles and other performers
* A Decorate-Your-Bike station for kids (okay, adults can join too)
* A drop-off station for your old bikes, which a Boy Scout will repair and then donate to kids without bikes
* A drop-off station for your bike, where you can pick up a ticket and move about the event while volunteers watch your bike (so no need for locks or bicycle racks)
* A huge scavenger hunt in West Hartford Center
* A four-mile ride for kids,  a 15-mile ride in West Hartford and a six-town 35+ mile ride at the end of the event (all with maps and cue sheets).

We will post official start times at our table and try to organize riders into manageable groups of 10, but you can also find the official maps and cue sheets on our website at www.bikewesthartford.org 


There’s so much more than even what we have listed here coming your way on Wheel Fun Day!!!

Come be part of an event that’s about celebrating a Complete Street where cars, pedestrians and bicyclists all feel safe and integrated into the healthy movement patterns of our town. 

Do you want to volunteer? Do you want to post a sign in your yard? Let us know. Contact Mary Collins at wheelfun@bikewesthartford.org.   Even if you can’t volunteer, we hope you’ll join us and take part in Wheel Lots of Fun.

Do you have a favorite bicycle moment you want to share? Here’s mine for April 2013: Riding down Fern Street, crossing down Steele Road, sneaking into the back entrance of Elizabeth Park and catching the first green tops of the flowers emerging from the manicured beds by the greenhouse in the first week of April.         Mary Collins