‘Feels very disrespectful’: Kenaston ghost bike memorial for couple vanishes

A ghost bike memorial that honoured a Winnipeg couple killed in a collision involving an alleged impaired driver has gone missing, leaving their loved ones distraught and police investigating.

The two-seat bicycle was chained to a metal pole next to Kenaston Boulevard’s southbound lanes, near Enterprise Drive, in memory of Kerry Bonner, 25, and Egor Popov, 31, who died Sept. 13.

“I started crying. Who could do something like that?” Bonner’s sister, Julia Bonner, said of when she learned the bike was removed. “I was just in the moment of missing my sister and to hear that, I was devastated.”

It’s not yet known who removed the bike or why.

With the blessing of Bonner and Popov’s loved ones, the ghost bike was set up by members of Winnipeg’s cycling community during a vigil Sept. 26.

The bike was gone when Samantha Beiko, a a cycling community member, checked on it Tuesday night.

“It just feels very disrespectful. It’s sort of like removing a grave marker,” Beiko said.

A couple of severed chain links and a plastic flower, previously attached to the bike, were all that remained at the base of the pole.

Painted white, the bicycle was welded together and non-functional.

“For now, pretty much the working theory is somebody pulled up, cut the chain and took the bike for scrap,” Beiko said. “It just shows that this is how people view vulnerable road users.”

She called the Winnipeg Police Service’s property crimes unit Wednesday morning to report the bike missing.

Police spokesman Const. Claude Chancy confirmed an investigation is underway.

The memorial was not removed by city staff, spokesman Adam Campbell said.

Beiko posted appeals on social media in a bid to track down the bike, which was on a route used by tens of thousands of drivers per day. She contacted scrap yards in case someone tries to exchange the bike for cash.

Bonner and Popov — survived by a young child — were on Kenaston’s southbound shoulder when the driver of a speeding pickup truck crashed into them and then fled the scene, police said in September.

Police charged Kuldeep Singh Gill, 41, with two counts each of dangerous driving causing death, impaired driving causing death and failing to stop at the scene of an accident. He was granted bail in October.

Court records show Gill was arrested for driving while impaired by alcohol in July 2016. After pleading guilty in provincial court, he was barred from driving for a year and fined $1,500.

The cycling community and Bonner and Popov’s loved ones are discussing whether to put up a new ghost bike or a different memorial. Beiko said there are worries that a new ghost bike, if installed, would be removed, as well.

Ghost bikes have been set up in cities around the world to remember cyclists killed in collisions. The memorials are intended to raise awareness about the risks cyclists face.

Before it vanished, Beiko said advocates heard from some people who didn’t know what the bike on Kenaston symbolized. She said that demonstrates a need for more education.

After the double fatal collision, Bike Winnipeg said Kenaston between Sterling Lyon Parkway and McGillivray Boulevard lacks safe infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, forcing them onto unprotected shoulders.

Earlier this month, a driver crashed an SUV into a ghost bike — damaging a plaque — that was next to Wellington Crescent, near Hugo Street, and drove off, Beiko said.

It happened the day after the city invited people to weigh in on a proposed temporary bike lane for Wellington between Academy Road and Stradbrook Avenue, she said.

The bike paid tribute to Rob Jenner, 61, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver while cycling to work at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in June 2024.

Beckham Severight, then 19, was driving at least 159 km/h in a 50-km/h zone immediately before the crash, court heard in March. He received a three-year sentence and five-year driving ban for dangerous driving causing death and leaving the scene of a collision.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca