May is bike month and in Tallahassee one way to take advantage of the warmer weather is by renting a Pace bike.
Pace bikes are the white bikes with front baskets that you may have seen parked at a number of hubs around Tallahassee. They’re part of a bike share program that can be accessed through an app. Vanessa Christiansen is the regional market manager for Pace Tallahassee. She says the bikes have been used for more than 10,000 rides since the project launched in December.
“I think it shows that the city’s infrastructure is so good that we were able to come in and take advantage of that because like I said you have to lock to something when you ride a Pace bike. But the fact that there are so many bike racks around, the fact that there are so many bike lanes around, really just facilitates the experience for our riders,” Christiansen says.
About 150,000 cyclists take to the Saint Marks Trail every year. But officials say they’d like to see even more. Greg Slay is the executive Director of the Capital Region Transportation Planning Agency. He says the agency is reaching out to riders to learn more about what paths they’d like to see as part of an effort to update the Tallahassee/Leon County Bicycle/Pedestrian Master plan.
“The longer you can make a trail, the bigger draw it is. Something like the St. Marks trail is more of a regional, maybe a local draw, whereas if you can get one that’s maybe 40 or 50 miles long those turn into a national draw where people come in around the country to ride trails of that length,” Slay says.
Several events are planned for bike month. Staff will lead two bike rides during that time—one this weekend aimed at baby boomers that will feature a tour of Cascades Park and Smokey Hollow, and another toward the end of the month that will take riders to several of the city’s farmers markets.
