Bicycle Gateway (Overton Park)

Memphis, Tennessee, United States

Buildings and structures

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

The Overton Park Conservancy says the Bike Gate arch of donated bicycles and wheeled objects, built in 2014 by Youngblood Studio and led by sculptor Tylur French, rises at East Parkway and Sam Cooper Boulevard where Interstate 40 was once planned.

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Bicycle Gateway (Overton Park)

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Approximate location · 35.144° N, 89.985° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A Memphis park entrance is marked by an arch of donated bicycles, raised where an interstate was once planned to run.

The Overton Park Conservancy says the Bike Gate arch rises at East Parkway and Sam Cooper Boulevard, in the location where Interstate 40 was once planned to cut through the park. Sculptor Tylur French told WMC-TV in February 2014: "Back in the 70s, Interstate 40 was going to go through the park and the Supreme Court ruled it couldn't go through the park." The Conservancy says it was built in 2014 by Youngblood Studio from bikes and wheeled objects donated by the community, with the First Tennessee Foundation as sponsor.

The Conservancy's blog followed the making of it. French worked with bicycles, tricycles, wheelchairs and unusual shapes such as tandem and penny-farthing bikes, and collected 100 from Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop. The count grew: he first expected more than 200 frames, the Conservancy wrote of "nearly 300 bikes" on the frame in November 2013, and about 85 more were being welded on in February 2014. In March 2013 the Conservancy described a 5,000-pound arch about 24 feet tall; in December it said two 13-foot steel towers would carry an arch rising to 25 feet.

The arch was lifted into place in the pre-dawn hours of 12 February 2014, after mud had stopped the crane. The Conservancy describes a plaza beside it that connects the Old Forest trails to the Hampline and the Shelby Farms Greenline, and a Choose901 cycling guide of March 2025 directs riders to go "past the bike gate" on the way along the Hampline to the Greenline.

The park is open daily from dawn to dusk, with no admission fee, according to the Conservancy.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

The Conservancy describes the Bike Gate arch and a plaza linking the Old Forest trails with the Hampline and Shelby Farms Greenline. A Choose901 guide in March 2025 sent cyclists past the bike gate on the route from Overton Park to the Greenline.

ACCESS

At the East Parkway and Sam Cooper Boulevard entrance to Overton Park, Memphis, a public park. The Conservancy says the park is open daily from dawn to dusk with no admission fee.

COMMUNITY