Madison Cyclists Tune-Up with a Spring Fair

On Sunday, May 1st, city organizers, community members, and prominent bike sponsors hosted the inaugural Bike Madison Spring Fair at Wright Middle School. 

This free event offered educational sessions covering topics such as bike maintenance and bike safety. Bicycle skills courses taught children how to fix a flat tire and how to ride safely. With its ten educational workshops and multiple informational booths, community members deemed the five-hour event a success.

City Traffic Engineer and Parking Manager David Dryer said the event turned out well. Dryer oversees new transportation infrastructure improvements such as bike paths and is responsible for managing bicycle traffic.

“This (event) is a good way to inform citizens of what’s happening around them. I think it’s a good turnout,” Dryer said.

Community member and mother Elizabeth Ridley also agreed with Dreyer. Ridley who attended the event brought along her daughter Lily, 7, and Lily’s bike for decorating purposes.  

“This was a fun family event not only for me, but for my daughter too,” Ridley said. “It was like Biking 101, I learned stuff and so did Lily. The neighborhood is going to be hearing her bike horn a lot, that’s for sure.”

Ridley and her family live close enough to the school that they biked over to the fair.  Like Ridley, many other attendees also biked to the event and the school gymnasium was crowded with bikes. Amanda White, Associate Director of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, said that commuting by bicycle is becoming more frequent.

“Commuting to work is really incredible,” said White.  “Some businesses are actually starting to offer incentives to employees that bike to work.” The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin has created a bike community contest and used the fair to further publicize it.

This contest, the Scott Get Up and Ride Wisconsin Bike Challenge, starts on May 16 and runs through September 30. Businesses and organizations will compete against each other to see who can collectively log the most bicycle miles. 

“We are trying to get businesses to promote the challenge in their office,” said White. “It’s free for people to sign up and participate. We want some competition!”

Tony Fernandez, an engineer with the City of Madison, thinks the bike challenge is an excellent way to get people onto Madison’s bike paths. Currently, Fernandez is involved with the planning and development of five major bike path projects. Fernandez attended the fair to share these planning initiatives with the public. He stated that the paths are expected to be completed by 2024 and will cost about $10 million.

Local bike advocacy groups such as 20BY2020, Wheels for Winners, Freewheel, and the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin made sure that fair attendees were informed and gained valuable knowledge of their bicycle-friendly city.  With programming oriented to both children and adults, it appeared that everyone left the bike fair satisfied.

“I’m excited to show my friends how I decorated my bike, and I have to tell them to wear their helmet at all times too,” said Lily Ridley.