What began as an outlet for a group of friends to celebrate the Tour de France eventually morphed into a community-wide event, one that left at least one participant out of breath and encouraged about improving Muncie's image.
"It's about wanting to push yourself, wanting to get more miles on your bike," Jayme Skillman, instructor of elementary education, said. "I really think it's a great thing for Delaware County, for Muncie, to promote healthy lifestyles."
Saturday was the second annual Tour of Muncie, a locally held event with a purpose to help raise awareness of cyclists in Muncie and of different green initiatives in the community.
This year's event included six professionally led tours, as well as three self-led tours which showcased different areas of Muncie. One of the tours, the Weird Muncie tour, took participants past different aspects of Muncie culture, including the Castle House, Cintas guy, the AT&T Building and Algier's Barber Shop.
David Bradway, one of the founders of the event, said when the event started last year, there was only one led tour, which focused on storm water initiatives.
This year, the fundraising event consisted of several tours, and Bradway said he wanted them to be informational.
"We want to get the biking community to be comfortable riding on the roads," he said. "And we want to show the vehicular community that there are going to be bikes on the road that they need to watch out for, and that they have the same rights that they do."
Bradway said he was pleased with this year's event, especially since there was more participation than last year.
Although he was not sure of the exact numbers at the time, co-founder Jarrod Case said he was confident they raised more money than last year.
"Overall for this year, I'd say that we're at a couple thousand [dollars] with all of the people registered," he said. "And that's not counting money from sponsors."
Skillman said the bike ride was a workout that pushed her endurance.
"It was so much fun, and we did a lot of learning along the way," she said. "We really enjoyed it."
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