“The Mighty Bike,” a nearly 12-foot climbable sculpture, is the latest edition to one of Roeland Park’s biggest parks.
Created by artist Matt Kirby, “The Mighty Bike” is a supersized 1960s-style bicycle — sitting at nine feet wide and 20 feet long — equipped with an enlarged paper route basket that serves as a balcony, as well as climbing nets and a telescope.
It is anticipated that the $170,000 sculpture will be installed in its permanent home at R Park, 5535 Juniper, later this summer.
The bike will anchor a new “traffic garden”
- The sculpture will be located in the southeast corner of the park, in the middle of a new traffic garden’s largest roundabout.
- The traffic garden itself aims to teach children how to follow the rules of the road on a bicycle or scooter.
- Roeland Park city councilmember Kate Raglow told the Post that she included the $170,000 for the bike sculpture as a budget item because she believes it can foster imagination, creativity and friendships.
- “I really hope it kind of expands the box for them of what they can do and what they get excited about doing, even if it’s something like architecture or teaching, teaching art, whatever it may be,” Raglow said.
Artist says bikes are a ‘symbol of childhood’
- When the city approached him about doing an interactive sculpture, Kirby said he started thinking about the doodles he saw his childhood friends draw in margins of their notebooks.
- Those images included fantastical bicycles, he said, and he imagined “The Mighty Bike” as one of those doodles coming to life and magically landing in R Park.
- After researching the origins of the banana seat bicycle, Kirby said he went back to his shop and created a model.
- “It’s kind of a cultural symbol of growing up in the United States and in other places with suburbs,” Kirby. “It’s a symbol of childhood, it’s a symbol of a creative mindset, it’s the symbol of the creativity of being a kid and anything on the open road is a possibility.”
This is the result of a public-private partnership
- The city itself budgeted $90,000 for “The Mighty Bike,” and residents and businesses donated toward a fundraising goal of an additional $77,000.
- Gretchen Davis, a member of citizen-led Neighbors for a Better Roeland Park, said residents and businesses have raised nearly $50,000 so far.
- Davis said the city is awaiting a decision on a $25,000 grant from a local foundation to help boost the fundraising efforts.
- Donations to “The Mighty Bike” can be made online here by noting The Mighty Bike Project in the description.
More Roeland Park news: This Shawnee Mission school has a new climbing wall thanks to local neighborhood group
