Neighborhood Tour Schedule Announced

We are happy to announce a series of neighborhood tours! Details on each individual tour, including prices, descriptions, and information about our community partners will be spelled out next week. For now, mark your calendars!

Saturday, August 30: Corktown Saturday, September 6: Eastern Market Saturday, September 13: Southwest Detroit Sunday, September 14: Boston Edison Saturday, September 27: The Villages Saturday, October 4: Creekside Sunday, October 5: Conner Creek Greenway

Shop to benefit cycling in Detroit

This Thursday, August 7, a portion of money spent at Bureau of Urban Living will benefit our friends at Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance. The shop is located at 460 W. Canfield in Midtown.

MTGA has become very active in moving along the growing network of cycling amenities in Detroit. We love an excuse to spend some coin at Bureau!

Ride Reports

Three rides went off this week worth noting:

• 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!

City to City Ride August 2

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.

Parking liberation

Breaking News: The parking lot adjacent to Rivard Plaza is back to free!

Sport Utility Bike + City Council Rally + Fresh Booze + Tour de Troit

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.

Vote Wheelhouse in '08!

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.

Some license clarity at last!

From the chief herself, the license ordinance will be used as a voluntary measure, not as an enforcement hammer. From m-bike:

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.

Parking Announcement

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.

Odds & Ends

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!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3wnYAbCztc]