After years of budget problems and broken promises, the old Rock Island railroad bridge has been renovated and this weekend, it reopened as the Clinton Park Bridge.
We wanted as many cyclists as we could muster to attend the opening, and a wide variety of people on bikes turned out to listen to Bill Clinton’s speech and ride across the new old bridge.
There was even one unicyclist in attendance for the event. 🙂
After the ceremony, the gates were opened and cyclists were allowed to cross from the Clinton Library grounds over into North Little Rock. Our family was well-represented by ‘firsts’ – Mandy was the first unicyclist across. I was involved in the first bike wreck when a go-fast guy stopped paying attention long enough to crash into my back wheel. I was on the polo bike, so I was plenty stable enough to take the hit and keep going. I got off anyway, though, to help the other guy scrape himself up off the ground and retrieve his expensive sunglasses, which he nearly flung off into the Arkansas River.
Bryan was on his polo bike too, and when he tried to skid he blew a hole in a tire, making a loud ‘POP!’ We laughed later about how the sound probably really worried all the Secret Service guys standing around.
It was very cool to be part of such a big event – a THIRD dedicated bike/ped bridge spanning the river here in Little Rock. We’re still working on a million other details related to bike-friendly-ness here in Central Arkansas, but these cool bridges certainly send us in the right direction!