#Ridingmurals Indegos designed by kids hit streets

A unicorn, a watermelon-themed “Sweet Ride” and a mash-up of artisticstyleswill soon be seen on the side of Indego bicycles.

“It feels amazing — I know I created it and everybody’s going tobe riding it!” said IajaeTaylor, 11, one of the kids who helped design the new Riding Murals Indego bikes.

The new bikes were designedby kids from Laura W. Waring Elementary School,working with Indego through a Mural Arts Program class. It’s the same class that has previously worked on painting garbage trucks and big belly garbage compactors, with some new students.

“I like it,”said Laney Jenkins, 11, of her design, the “Sweet Ride.” “It shows how much creativity we put into it.”

“They were confused about the bike share concept because it was totally new to the city, but once they got it, they were totally psyched,”said mural arts teacher Sarah Folger, who described the creativekids’ approach to designing the bikes as “no limits.”

“For this to be rideable art was new and exciting for them.”

The first four specially designed Indego bikes were unveiled Monday morning at the Indego hub at Fairmount and Ridge Avenues.

Six remaining models will be released scavenger-hunt-style, said Indego community relations managerKiera Smalls.

Indego will release tweets tagged #ridingmurals with hints about where the new bikes are located. People who find the bikes may even get prizes likefree T-shirts, Smalls said.