Art On Wheels!

Kiran from Art on Wheels led a small group of us bikers around downtown last night for an informative tour. As a regular pedestrian/​cyclist of the trails and pathways downtown, I was excited to learn more about the pieces seen regularly in passing.
We began the night at East Village where our guide explained in detail Light & Soul, a temporary fixture where past meet future. There is significant influence from Indigenous storytelling. Hands forming different shapes from nature (animal, trees, etc) was one of the major themes. Did you know the murals on the underpass are actually vinyl wallpaper? Now you do!
We moved up to the large permanent accordion mosaic by Ron Moppet, which is an abstract vision of Alberta’s past to future. It’s a piece I have missed on my travels since it is on the East side of the overpass, but one of the most colourful on the tour.
After that, we visited the head in front of the Bow Tower, the Conversation in Stephen Ave, Chinook Arc in Bob Scott Park (which is interactive), Luminous Crossings at Kerby Station, and Memorial Steel Art. I learned a lot about these pieces I’ve seen before, and saw things that I hadn’t noticed before.
The total time on our bikes was around 2 hrs. This was slightly longer than I had anticipated, but we were moving quite slow in order to stick together. If you can pick up the pace with your group, it’d be the perfect length.
Thanks again for the tour, Kiran!

A really terrible waste of my day. Riding from place to place through a very busy down town core to be told very little about some very strange looking pieces of «art» was not my idea of a day well spent. Not only did we seem to be actively avoiding anything that resembled actual art, we also seemed to be learning very little about the large chunks of garbage that we were led to.
The tour should be titled «Unusual ways city hall has found to waste our tax dollars» instead of «Art on wheels».
Avoid this tour if possible as it really is a complete waste of time and money.

It’s a fantastic way to utilize the new bike lakes in Calgary and explore the cities diverse public art. Having traveled abroad and been on many walking/​bike tours, it’s something I’ve realized Calgary definitely needs as it develops history and culture.
The biking tour I did was fairly informative with me learning new facts about the public art I had no idea about previously. I would recommend that if the information was a bit cleaned up then the users would be able to take away more from the tours but that being said, I had a fantastic evening biking around Calgary and learned a bunch of interesting things.
Kiran, who runs the tour is passionate and knowledgeable and makes it a very laid back and fun evening. Would recommend to anybody!

Its a great way to explore the city’s new cycletrack and learn about the public art around the downtown core. I think the pacing could be improved, with a 2^nd guide cycling with the end of the group who also knows the route, in case part of the group has to stop at a red light and don’t know where to go.