Main content

Come Pedal Our Past

Come Pedal Our Past and celebrate Colorado Springs’ 150th anniversary cruising along on wheels!  Choose the historic loop (or all of them) that fits you and your family and friends, your fitness level and your curiosity about our community.
 

Bicycles are the perfect tool to explore a city: They are fast enough that you can cover some ground, slow enough that you can really see things, nimble enough that you can stop at a moment’s notice, and open not just to sights, but to scents, sounds, tastes, and tactile and kinetic elements too. So there’s no better way to experience the history of the city in its landscape than a tour by bike!

These routes are intended to serve as a taste of both bicycling in Colorado Springs and our rich and varied history. They are far from comprehensive. If you want more, you can visit City Bike Maps | Colorado Springs for ALL our great bike trails and routes and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum - CSPM can help you plot your OWN bicycle tour through history!  

How to participate

There are lots of ways to participate!  Individuals, families, educational groups, businesses, groups of friends, date nights can ALL have fun with Pedal Our Past.  And in the process, explore the unique, fun and fascinating story of the people, places and events of the past 150 years that got us to where we are today! 

Guide yourself on a historic tour through a neighborhood or join a group ride. Tackle part of a tour or challenge yourself with more than one. Follow our Facebook and Instagram for fun challenges and share your photos and experiences with the hashtag #PedalOurPast to enter a drawing for fabulous prizes! 

Explore historic tours of five neighborhoods

It’s a great way to see for yourself how the city has grown and changed over time, and over the land!
 

For Bike Month during the entire month of June, temporary signage will write the city’s history on the landscape of the routes. These routes will also live digitally so locals and visitors can keep learning about the history of Colorado Springs well into the future. 

  • Legacy Loop - The Legacy Loop is the realization of General Palmer’s vision for a greenspace encircling the Downtown area. Points of interest span the first days of Colorado Springs to Olympic City USA. 
  • Hillside - This loop around the neighborhoods east of Downtown runs the gamut from sick people wanting to be well to athletes wanting to be the best. And Nikola Tesla! 
  • Southeast - Learn how the airport, the military and strong local institutions and people have made Southeast Colorado Springs (the newest neighborhood in Pedal our Past) the family-focused the strong, resilient, family-focused neighborhood it is today
  • Cragmor - You will experience a little bit of everything on this tour, from tuberculosis sanatoria to Hollywood, and from industrial history to education, plus the flood of 1935.  
  • Old Colorado City - If Colorado Springs was genteel and delightful, Colorado City was a much more Wild West boomtown. Learn about the first territorial capital and how Colorado City has developed since then.

To reduce the economic impact of local businesses, Pedal Our Past will replace the 2021 Bike to Work Day event in which businesses provide riders a free breakfast. The City plans for the return of Bike to Work Day in 2022.

Follow us for updates

Ready to get rolling? Let’s go!

Partners and sponsors

Pedal Our Past is organized by the City of Colorado Springs and is supported by local media partners  KOAA News5, Magic 98.5 FM and The Colorado Springs Independent Newspaper. A special thanks to our organizing sponsors, the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, Bike Colorado Springs, and the Trails and Open Space Coalition