Last Saturday my friends and I went on a 42 mile bike ride through Detroit as part of an annual revitalization event. I had two bikes: I let my girlfriend take my mountain bike, and I rode in my folding bike. Folding bikes are not designed to go on long trips (they have small wheels and low gear ratios), but I felt I was in enough shape to handle the stairmaster that is the single speed. You have to pedal very very fast just to keep pace with the regular bikes.
The trip began at the old Michigan Central Station, a beautiful abandoned building that was in an odd part of town even when it was newly constructed. It will never be torn down and will forever remain perpetually mired in aborted renovation plans.
Not all the of the living things on the bicycles were human.
After a late start (10:30 AM) we were off, and we went directly towards downtown Detroit. You can see the route map and area highlight list below (courtesy of the Wheelhouse).
There were about 1100 bikers, but we were all appropriately spread out that only rarely did it become uncomfortably crowded.
In the video below, notice the iconic steam rising from the manhole covers as we pass Woodward avenue. If you look very closely as we make our left turn you can also see the Spirit of Detroit Statue.
After a brief tour of the downtown Detroit we then drove through the old neighborhoods on Detroit's Northwest side of town. There were only 2 other people with folding bikes out of the 1100 people, and people we would pass in the neighborhoods would always call out(especially the kids), "Whoah..that bike is cool! It looks like a scooter!" When Miss Trigger rode it, the effect was even more so.
In the final part of the trip, we headed south on grand river avenue for 10 miles back into corktown. I thought this was rather curious, but Miss Trigger told me the neighborhoods around that area are pretty bad. The police escort actually stopped the whole biking group two or three times on the road to keep us all clustered together. Whether that was to make the police force's job easier or keep us safe, or both, I don't know.
My favorite picture is the one below of Greg, happy and relaxed on a nice Saturday bike ride, with a wonderful view of an iconic image, unfortunately, of Detroit's negative population growth: the abandoned burned out building in the background.
The "bad ass" bike of the day award goes to the dude below. What is it even called?
The tour ended soon after that, and after packing the bikes up we had some lunch in Mexican town, drove back to Ann Arbor, and I promptly passed out for two hours.
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