The Funkiest Bike Racks in Canada Might Now Be in Banff

Three new bike racks installed on Caribou Street are giving Banff cyclists a place to lock up while adding a piece of public art to the downtown streetscape.

The artist-designed racks, created by blacksmith Paul Reimer, were installed at the entrance to the newly renewed Caribou Street, beside Canada House Gallery. The gallery donated the racks to the Town of Banff, while the Town contributed up to $10,200 from its Public Art Reserve to support their installation and long-term maintenance.

The installation marks the completion of the $6.8-million Caribou Street reconstruction and renewal project, which replaced aging underground utilities, realigned the Caribou Street and Lynx Street intersection and extended the pedestrian-focused design of Bear Street.

For Reimer, the project started with a practical question: how could Banff add more bicycle parking while also making the downtown streetscape more interesting?

The idea came through Canada House Gallery, where Reimer has been an artist since 2010. Gallery staff, many of whom cycle themselves, approached the Town about adding bicycle parking as part of the Caribou Street redevelopment. They then suggested Reimer's work as a potential fit.

“I had this idea of trying to create a bike sculpture that would kind of represent the fluidity of movement of a cyclist with his bike,” said Reimer. “So the cyclist and the bike almost become one.”

The result is three roughly five-foot-tall sculptures made from galvanized, two-inch-wide steel pipe. Each one depicts a cyclist and bicycle in a continuous, flowing form. The fabrication took almost six months, and the three racks are valued at about $7,650.

Turning a cyclist into a single line of steel

Reimer is a blacksmith, and the racks were made using traditional techniques rather than the machinery typically used in modern metal fabrication.

“I’m really old school in my process,” said Reimer. “Heat up the steel and hammer it while its hot kind of thing.”

That process allows him to create curves and shapes that would be difficult to produce using cold-bending machines, he said.

But the technique is only part of the concept.

Reimer wanted the sculptures to capture what happens when a cyclist is moving quickly: the distinction between person and machine begins to disappear.

“If you see a cyclist go by at a very high rate of speed, you can't really differentiate between where the body of the cyclist ends and the bike begins,” he said. “They're kind of just a blur all together.”

That idea became the foundation for the design.

The cyclist, bicycle and wheels are formed from one continuous piece of metal. Following the sculpture from one end to the other takes the viewer through the wheels, body, head and arms before returning to the wheels.

“I wanted to give it this feeling of being in motion,” said Reimer.

The design also has a connection to Canada House Gallery. Reimer has previously made smaller versions of the same bicycle motif for sale inside the gallery. The new racks bring the larger version of that work outside, where it can function both as sculpture and infrastructure.

For Reimer, that combination is part of what makes public art worthwhile.

“One of my reasons for being a public artist is that I really enjoy helping to build community through art,” he said.

Art in public spaces, he said, can create a shared experience among people who might otherwise have little connection with one another. Adding a practical purpose gives the work another layer.

“When you make a sculpture that kind of serves two purposes - one functional for locking your bike up, and the second for being a piece of art - I think you're kind of hitting that community creation button twice when you do that,” he said.

Reimer has created other functional public-art bike racks, including a different design at the Chinook Centre LRT station in Calgary and a project in Reno, Nevada.

A new piece of Caribou Street

The racks are one small part of a much larger transformation of Caribou Street.

The reconstruction began in September 2025 and replaced water, sewer and storm-drainage systems that were approaching 100 years old in some locations. Power, natural gas and telecommunications infrastructure were also relocated underground.

Above ground, the project extended elements of Banff's pedestrian-priority Bear Street design onto Caribou Street.

More than 37,000 paving blocks were cut for the new plaza-like surface. Ten planters contain 163 boulders that double as seating, while 10 trees and more than 30 shrubs add shade and help calm traffic.

At the west end of the project, the Caribou Street and Lynx Street intersection was realigned to shorten pedestrian crossing distances and improve visibility for drivers. The change also created a small parkette beside Canada House Gallery, with additional seating and space for the new bicycle racks.

The location is significant for both cycling and public art.

Caribou and Bear streets contain the town's highest concentration of restaurants and galleries, according to the Town. And cycling is already a significant part of how people move around Banff: about 67 per cent of residents report walking or cycling as their primary transportation method in summer, compared with 46 per cent in winter. The Town also says it regularly receives requests for more bicycle parking downtown.

The racks therefore sit at the intersection of two existing priorities: making it easier to move around Banff without a car and incorporating art into public spaces.

The Town's Community Art Committee, which advises Council on the purchase and placement of public art, recommended the three large racks for the site. The racks were installed parallel to the Canada House Gallery frontage.

For Reimer, that combination is ultimately what public art can do best: become part of people's ordinary routines rather than something they only encounter when visiting a gallery.

A cyclist can use the sculpture to lock up a bike. A pedestrian can stop to look at it. Someone sitting nearby can simply encounter it as part of the street.

And, Reimer said, those different interactions can create a shared experience.

“I think that when art is out in the public sphere, it helps create a sense of community identity,” he said.