Our fourth Wednesday night ride hit Brush Park, Wayne State, Woodbridge and North Corktown, across the cool corkscrew pedestrian bridge and then – bam – right up to the gaping hole at Tiger Stadium. highly recommended perspective for maximum emotional impact. We finished up by riding down the “old” riverwalk that runs between Rosa Parks and 8th. Remember, 9 p.m. every Wednesday at the Wheelhouse
The Bike Riders United victory ride on Friday toured downtown with approximately 25 riders – including Chief of Police Ella Bully-Cummings. Check out m-bike’s slideshow. Next step: drafting language to amend the city’s bike licensing ordinance.
On Saturday, Karen rode in the send-off for Rock CF’s City to City Ride. After coffee at Campus Martius, about 30 cyclists headed down Michigan Ave. to send off Emily and Kevin to Chicago. Be sure to check in to Rock CF’s site to read about their progress!
Join us Saturday, August 2, 2008 on Detroit’s Ride for Cystic Fibrosis !
Beginning at Campus Martius Park in Detroit, participants will ride to Dearborn for a 20-25 mile group ride along Michigan Avenue and then loop back to Detroit. What a great reason to get out on your bike on a summer Saturday morning! Check in begins at 8:00 am and and the Ride begins at 9:00 am. Helmets are mandatory!
This is your chance to help make a difference in the fight against CF. Come out and be a part of a great Detroit event. Register today.
Here’s a great article in Salon about a guy who had an Xtracycle installed on his bike so that he could haul groceries — and his two kids — around. We installed one for a customer recently, and the whole thing is pretty cool. Thinking about ditching a car completely raises some issues, like groceries, pets, other large objects. The Xtracycle solves some of those problems.
On Monday, July 28, there is meeting with Bike Riders United and other local cycling clubs at Detroit City Council chambers at which Detroit’s bike ordinance will be re-examined. Be there, on the 13th floor of the Coleman A Young Municipal Center, at 9:45 a.m.
Last evening’s night ride was pretty awesome. We rode out to River Rouge down W. Jefferson and stopped in for a quick one at Fresh Booze — on the scenic shores of the Rouge River — then back downtown via W. Fort. A good time was had by all. Join us next week — Wednesday, 9 p.m.
Finally, pre-registration for this year’s Tour de Troit is on-line at tour-de-troit.org. It is set for September 20, and the route is shaping up great.
Wheelhouse is competing in Channel 4’s “2008 Vote for The Best” in the category of best bike shop. Vote for us here!
There is a Bike-A-Thon scheduled for Friday, August 1 at 12:30 p.m. It starts across from Bert’s in Eastern Market and will celebrate the non-enforcement decision of the Detroit Police Department with regard to licensing. For more info, call 313-422-3617.
It was not her intent to have officers write tickets. The police are not looking to enforce the penalty portion of the licensing issue.
The Chief did acknowledge that is was a mistake to not work with community groups, including cyclists prior to issuing the initial press release about the licensing.
We are still working to sell the licenses here, but as of yesterday the DPD was out of them and not expecting more for about a week.
There is now a $2 charge to park in the lot adjacent to Rivard Plaza. If you are dropping off or picking up a bike for service, please pull into Rivard directly south of Atwater. Sometimes the gate is open for the free lot otherwise, you can just pull up to the fence.
We are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience and we are doing our best to figure out a better long-term solution to this problem.
UPDATE: At least for now, the lot just west of the building is being kept open for our customers.
Our first Wednesday night ride went off well, we toured West and Indian Villages. This week, the plan is to hit the Heidelberg Project and the Better Made factory. Meet us at the shop at 9 if you’d like to join.
We got all of our bikes licensed, and are currently working with DPD to even sell them here. Although we still have a fear, like many of the people we talk to, that licenses will be used for harassment rather than for the stated purpose of reducing bike theft, but we can only hope. And we’ve been talking to a lot of officers, all of whom feel like ticketing suburbanites — or residents for that matter — without licenses is just not going to happen. It’s not worth a trip to court for a ticket that will likely get thrown out.
On that note, we will be offering 10% off any safety equipment purchases (helmets, mirrors, bells, lights, etc.) and a free safety inspection for everyone with a licensed bicycle through July 19.
Wheelhouse was featured in Twist last weekend, the Freep’s women-oriented pullout. Check it here.
Lastly, we are thrilled that a customer of ours, Stephanie, learned how to ride a bike this past weekend after just her second rental. It’s hard to learn new things as an adult, so we sincerely congratulate her! She ended up having a blast after some initial trepidation. And we have the video to prove it!
We are preparing to send in our first shipment of tubes to Alchemy Goods, so if you have old tubes laying around at home, feel free to drop them off at the shop.
AG makes cool stuff out of the tubes, including messenger bags and wallets. And they incorporate valves into their designs as zipper pulls.
The M-Bike blog weighs in the bike license issue with some helpful info:
The Detroit News ran an article today about Detroit Police plans to ticket cyclists in Detroit on unlicensed bikes:
[...]
But it’s not enforceable
But the real story is the law is unenforceable under state law.
To begin with MCL 257.606 sub-section (1)(i) states that local authorities can “[Regulate] the operation of bicycles and requiring the registration and licensing of bicycles, including the requirement of a registration fee.” The CIty of Detroit can require bicycle licenses.
However, MCL 257.606 sub-section (3) says that such a requirement “shall not be enforceable until signs giving notice of the local traffic regulations are posted upon or at the entrance to the highway or street or part of the highway or street affected, as may be most appropriate, and are sufficiently legible as to be seen by an ordinarily observant person.”
Detroit does not have any such signage nor have we heard of any plans to add any. Posting such signs around all the major city entrances would involve a major cost. I am unaware of any city within Michigan that has taken such a drastic step to make bike license registration an enforceable ordnance.
The Detroit Chief of Police has been alerted to the state law.
The Detroit News expects to run a follow up story tomorrow. They have received considerable feedback on this. Needless to say, this police announcement has not made very many people happy.
In these times of high fuel prices and people looking at alternative means of getting around, we shouldn’t be looking to penalize those riding bikes in Detroit.
