LAKEWOOD, Colo. — A white bike on the side of Alameda Parkway in Lakewood holds a deep meaning for Mike Inglis and Keith Erffmeyer.
The bike, a “ghost bike,” honors the memory of Mike’s wife and Keith’s sister, Gwen Inglis – and it marks the spot where she was killed in 2021. An impaired driver hit 46-year-old Gwen Inglis, a cycling champion, while she was biking with her husband.
“I think people who heard Gwen's story understand the significance of it,” Erffmeyer said. “It’s a reminder of where my little sister lost her life.”
Other cyclists placed the ghost bike in the days after she died.
“This is where my wife died, this is where we were on a ride together. And I did CPR right here,” Mike Inglis said. “It’s part of the community.”
Though, for some, two years of the memorial is enough. The city of Lakewood asked Mike Inglis to remove the memorial because of one complaint, which said the area looks dilapidated and is disturbing to walk past.
Lakewood considers ghost bikes as roadside memorials and requires their eventual removal.
“Everybody has been super friendly, everybody has worked together to try and resolve this situation, where one person's complaint doesn't take down a community monument,” Mike Inglis said.
A city spokesperson said the bike can stay until the family chooses language for a memorial sign, but Gwen’s family said a sign alone isn’t enough.
“If this was ‘the world according to Mike,’ and I got to make the rules, there would be a sign right here saying that this was the Gwen Inglis Memorial Bikeway,” her husband said. “And the white bike would be locked to that stand, and we'd keep it clean with clean flowers indefinitely.”
As long as people in cars continue to kill people on bikes, Erffmeyer and Mike Inglis believe the ghost bike needs to stay.
They also think Gwen would want it that way.
“We'll never know the lives that are saved by something like this, and somebody that takes the precautions, but we'll know the ones that don't and there will be another white bike,” Erffmeyer said.
A spokesperson for Lakewood said they are not aware of any other ghost bikes in the city.
Several bike advocacy groups are working with Gwen's family to try to keep the ghost bike up in some form.
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