BikeLakeland is a group of bicycling enthusiasts in Lakeland, Florida. Our group believes strongly that Lakeland can become one of Florida’s premier bike friendly communities. The BikeLakeland mission is to bring together Lakeland area bicyclists, business people, and city employees to increase awareness to effect positive change for bicycle riders in this area.

The four downtown bike racks are the “sons and daughters” of Cindi the Cyclist and her partner BikeLakeland, the artistic bike rack located in Munn Park across from Nathan’s Mens Store. To make the downtown racks easier to find, they’re all painted yellow.

Playfully named like Cindi, the racks are “Gigi” (Kentucky at Traders Alley), “Celso” (Lemon at Kentucky), “Haru” (Tennessee at Main), and “Sophie” (Pine at Tennessee). A fifth bike rack is planned, but the committee chose to delay the installation in hopes of getting public feedback about the best location for the last Downtown rack.

In addition to the work of the many members of BikeLakeland, generous donations were made by Spring Obsession and CSX. Donations to BikeLakeland are channeled through the Community Foundation of Greater Lakeland and can be made online at http://BikeLakeland.com.

BikeLakeland is a true public-private partnership. The organization consists of interested citizens and city staff who volunteer their time. Community Development staff guided the bike rack project through City Hall, and Public Works donated labor for the installation.

BikeLakeland would like to thank the following city employees who gave their time and expertise to make these bike racks possible: Tamara Sakagawa, Nicole Travis, Chuck Barmby, Rick Lilyquist, David Uria, Mike Whigham, Warren Bryant, Pam Page, Kim Stopiak, and Manuel Fields.

Gigi:

Sophie:

Haru:

Celso:

We’ll have a more formal “thank you” later today, but we wanted to send special thanks this morning to Spring Obsession for giving BikeLakeland their first donation and to Tamara Sakagawa, who guided the bike rack project through City Hall.

We’re fixing the online Lake-to-Lake map that failed to appear Friday. Look for it Wednesday.

Thanks for biking!

We’ve identified an accessible first goal. Lakeland lacks adequate bike parking to keep our bikes locked safely. BikeLakeland is working to alleviate that problem. Our goal is to raise funds to build at least 5 bike racks in Downtown Lakeland.

In coordination with the City of Lakeland Community Planning and Public Works Departments, we have identified handy potential rack sites throughout downtown. Working with local fabricators BikeLakeland is constructing racks that are visible, inexpensive, secure, accessible and attractive.

Designed to fully compliment and blend into the existing street structures, these bike racks will be attractive and functional additions to our city. They’ll send a powerful message that Lakeland’s downtown merchants welcome bicyclists. Families and individual riders will be able to enjoy the amenities our downtown offers, from the Frances Langford Promenade to Munn Park to the Kentucky shops and restaurants to the Lemon Street Promenade. To purchase and install each multi-bike rack costs less than $1000. Our goal is to raise $10,000.

“We receive and use 100% of funds donated by check to CFGL for BikeLakeland. If you’d like to donate now by credit card please follow this link, but please be aware that 3% your donation will be charged against your card for processing.”

If you’d prefer to donate by fully-deductible check, please make it out to the Community Foundation of Greater Lakeland with “BikeLakeland” in the memo and mail it to:

Community Foundation of Greater Lakeland
1501 South Florida Avenue
Lakeland, FL 33803

Thank you,

Tammy Wright
Fundraising Chair, BikeLakeland

BikeLakeland Task Force

Community:
(Chair) Chuck Welch, Publisher, Lakeland Local
Barry Friedman, Managing Editor/Digital, The Ledger
Mitch Harvey, Owner, Mitchell’s Coffee House
Jess Roberts, Network manager, Polk County School Board
Robert Tucker, Owner, Evolution Records
Will Shaffer, Director, Veloswan
Lorrie Delk Walker, Owner, Lorrie Walker Communications
Tammy Wright, Writer, The Lakeland Pedaller

City:
Anne Furr, Executive Director Lakeland Downtown Development Authority
Tamara Sakagawa, Community Redevelopment Manager, City of Lakeland
Don Selvage, City Commissioner
Julie Townsend, Executive Director, Downtown Lakeland Partnership

Bicycle Shops:
Jason Brown, Owner, Road & Trail Bicycles
Steven Manninen, Owner, LeRoy’s Bikeworks
Steve Strickland, Manager, Bent’s Cyclery

You won’t yet find a lot of content at Flickr and YouTube. We’re working on it…

Second, the concept was both clever and thoughtful. (And I get to brag on my designer because it was all his idea.) Lakeland has the iconic swan, and Tymn found a way to make this very subtle illustration where the saddle of the bike was also a swan. You don’t necessarily catch it on the first look, but once you see it, you won’t miss it again. He executed the concept well, with a great color palette, good typography and interesting juxtapositions of the other elements. We were creative. — How Little Projects Win Big Awards

Thanks Fred, Tymn and Smart Creative. You rock. And the judges agree.

Tigers starter and notable Twitter presence Brad Penny usually sends a good-morning tweet every morning after he wakes up. On Wednesday, he greeted everyone with a different tweet.

“Nice 8-mile bike ride to the stadium today,” he wrote.

He confirmed it later: Before a day of workouts in Spring Training, he worked out by riding his bicycle to Tigertown, a 40-minute ride by his estimate. He enjoys the bicycle as a cross-training exercise some days, and Lakeland has made a point in recent years to become more bike-friendly with bicycle lanes on several main roads.

He’s not the only one. Magglio Ordonez won’t commute to the park on his mountain bike, but he said he’ll ride a couple days a week, including near Joker Marchant Stadium along Lake Parker. It’s a good exercise for him, he said, and a good way to gather his thoughts.

Thanks for noticing Brad. We’re also working on adding bike racks and improving our bike paths.

Photo CC by Tom Hagerty for LakelandLocal.com. Used by permission.

Designed by professionals. People you should hire. Smart Creative is not just a name, they’re smart. They asked a few questions, put on their thinking caps, and sent over a logo fast, great and inexpensive*. You can’t get much better than that.

* – OK, they graciously donated their time to help the BikeLakeland cause. But they only have time to donate if companies big and small hire them. Consider this our overwhelming endorsement of their work.

These are the logos they sent over. (I forgot to mention they gave us two for the price of one. Well, actually for the price of none.)

** – We pulled out the BikeLakeland text for our header image. If it isn’t as sweet as the logo, blame us.