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“We’d hate to be in a position where someone was biking into work or off for a social engagement and couldn’t find a bike spot because of us.”

The campaign, Wilts said, was meant to promote bike culture and raise money for a good cause.

But it ran into some problems, including with Ottawa’s bylaw department.

Roger Chapman, chief of the city’s bylaw and regulatory services, said Monday that the Zibi bicycles “are being used as a method of advertising and therefore violate the city’s Signs on City Roads By-law.”

Wilts said Windmill talked to the city last week and said the bikes were being pulled.

The Zibi bike campaign also faced some blowback on social media, largely from people opposed to the development.

Members of a group that believes the massive development should not take place on unceded Algonquin land began putting bumper stickers on some of the racks with orange bikes that said #uncededbikeracks. Douglas Cardinal, the architect who designed the Canadian History Museum, is among people who say the former Domtar lands should not be a private development but a gathering place for First Nations. He has filed an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board of Ottawa’s approval of the development.

Windmill officials said the campaign was aimed, in part, at encouraging bike culture in the region.

“We love biking as much as you do. In fact, one of our development principles was to create one of the bike-friendliest communities in the world,” the company said in a blog post.