“It’s fun to eat popsicles on the PopCycle Bridge,” the children say, especially after riding their bikes 5 kilometers.
Red was clearly the favorite color of the children last Sunday as they walked the fairly flat route from America the Beautiful Park along the Legacy Loop Trail in Colorado Springs to the bridge.
But really, any taste is suitable, said 5-year-old Augie Schneider, who was participating with his parents and younger brother in the ever-popular Family PopCycle Ride presented by Kids on Bikes. The nonprofit organization works to “inspire and empower all children to lead healthy, active and happy lives through cycling” with camps, classes, after-school programs, school fundraisers and other events.
Augie’s backpack contained a plush Pikachu, the famous Pokémon character. After rummaging through a cooler provided by the Fountain Creek Watershed District, Augie brandished two free popsicles like swords before popping them in his mouth and savoring the sweetness.
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“It’s wonderful to see how much joy you can bring. It’s so simple, but it continues a tradition that they will remember for a long time,” said Mark Yeadon, a volunteer with Kids on Bikes.
For the past 12 years, children have sipped rainbow-colored popsicles at the rest stop along an abandoned road bridge that was replaced a decade ago and has become a key link in the city’s trail system.
Mark Yeadon watches as brothers Augie and Sam Schneider select their popsicles during the Family PopCycle Ride to PopCycle Bridge on Sunday from Kids on Bikes. Mom Courtney Meyer is also in the picture. (Debbie Kelley/The Gazette)
The final ride of the season will be on Sunday, August 25. It is a “We All Ride” event, so in addition to the usual PopCycle family ride, two local disability bike organizations will be providing accessible bikes for loan for the ride.
The Cool CATS Club, a program of the Arc of the Pikes Peak Region that hosts social events and activities for people with physical, developmental or intellectual disabilities; and Angletech, which builds recumbent bicycles and tricycles, rents out adapted bicycles.
Anyone interested can stop by America the Beautiful Park on Sunday at 1 p.m.
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This year marks the tenth anniversary of the start of the community-supported renovation of the old bridge. Before the renovation, a sign on site described it as a “brutally utilitarian place”.
Afterwards, it becomes a “magical place,” as the sign says, where children rejoice at their successful bike ride, play with other children, admire the wonders of nature around them, and lick ice-cold popsicles.
Courtney Meyer and her sons Sam and Augie Schneider enjoy popsicles during the Family PopCycle Ride to the PopCycle Bridge by Kids on Bikes on Sunday, Aug. 18. (Debbie Kelley/The Gazette)
The bridge that spans Monument Valley Creek west of the dead end of North Wood Avenue in the Old North End neighborhood remains a conduit for an active Colorado Springs Utilities line that carries nonpotable water, so there is still a chain-link fence with barbed wire and a thick pipe painted bright purple.
The bridge also features a 220-foot-long, decorative yet functional seating wall as part of the $60,000 renovation that was completed in 2014 and opened in 2015.
The bridge has also been converted into a safety practice station for children, with demonstration lines on the ground that replicate a road so children can learn and practice safe driving before going on a real road.
A lot of help and support from the community contributed to the completion of the project.
“Many organizations came together to build the bridge in its current form,” said longtime cycling activist Allen Beauchamp, who helped build it. “It’s a wonderful public-private partnership, and it worked.”
Beauchamp brought the first batch of popsicles to what was then the Kids on Bikes Family Ride on June 10, 2012. The children were surprised and grateful, he said, when the temperature climbed to 34 degrees that day.
He originally planned to provide the drivers with ice cream, but his wife suggested switching to popsicles. She said ice cream would be sticky in the scorching heat. She was right, Beauchamp admits.
Word that the ride had been improved and free popsicles were now being offered spread quickly, and participation increased, Beauchamp said.
Kids on Bikes celebrates its 10th anniversary in August 2015 and the opening of the Popcycle Bridge along the Pikes Peak Greenway Trail north of Monument Valley Park. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)
“We weren’t actually the ones who named it, the kids were,” he said. “PopCycle Bridge didn’t become a place until we started bringing kids there with popsicles, and it’s still going strong,” he said. “It’s going to be the best part of the summer.”
Now the weekly ride, which takes place every Sunday in June, July and August, attracts between 18 and 40 participants, said program manager Emily Shields.
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“It’s a free, fun family activity that’s open to all ages and abilities,” she said. “There aren’t many opportunities for families to ride together. We have people from all walks of life.”
Popsicles also motivate the children to complete the halfway point of the journey, said Jill Martin, who led the event last Sunday.
“It’s this crazy little ride that just keeps going,” Beauchamp said.
The program expanded this year to include three Family PopCycle rides in southeast Colorado Springs, from the Deerfield Hills Community Center, where there is a bike and helmet loaner program, to nearby parks. Kids on Bikes is working to offer more rides next summer, Shields said.
