Group celebrating Halloween with cemetery bike ride

BATON ROUGE – Halloween is in full swing for the capital city, and one group is celebrating the spooky season with an eerie bike ride.

Saturday morning, Bike Baton Rouge cycled through historic Spanish Town for their annual cemetery bike ride, known as the Velo Muertos Bicycle Tour. 

The group stopped at six different cemeteries, learning the history and spooky tales of each stop. The cemeteries included in the tour were Highland Cemetery, Luther Cemetery, Historic Sweet Olive, The National Cemetery, Historic Magnolia Cemetery, St. Joseph Cemetery and the Jewish Cemetery.

The tour is led each year by local bicycle advocate and historian Mark Martin.

“It’s one of the things where it’s really important for people to learn the history of the community and understand it,” said Lynley Farris, board president of Bike Baton Rouge. “Cemeteries are a great, fun way to start with that because so much history is behind the different phases and different cemeteries, famous individuals in it, how the cemeteries came part of the community, and it’s a good way to wrap up the spooky Halloween season.”

Their next bike ride will be in November, benefitting the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank.