Riverdays are here!

This weekend is Riverdays, Detroit's big waterfront festival with music, rides, and tons more. So how do bikes fit into all of this? Well, Wheelhouse is offering four tours a day for just 5 bucks -- including bike rental! The tours will run at odd hours -- 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. -- and will take about 45 minutes. We can accommodate 15 riders each time we go out. We'll travel to the eastern end of the Detroit RiverWalk alongside picturesque parks and beautiful marinas plus take an excursion onto the Dequindre Cut Greenway, a rail-to-trail project renowned for its elaborate graffiti artwork.

You can sign up in person or at the shop.

One last thing, we'll be closing a bit early this weekend. Hours June 18 to 21 will be 10 a.m. to 6: 30 p.m.

Colin Hubbell Bike Ride

Time for the Second Annual Colin Hubbell Bike Ride! It takes off from Traffic Jam & Snug at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 19. Registration is $20 ahead of time or $25 day of. The bike ride benefits the Colin Hubbell Fund, which in turn benefits small businesses and organizations in Midtown.

Read more about the event at Model D; register here; check out the flyer here.

See you there!

Short but sweet Complete Streets update

Thanks to League of Michigan Bicyclists and other coalition members for their efforts on garnering support for Complete Streets at the State legislative level. Check out their latest recap here.

June notes

Red Bull Air Races necessitates our closure from Thursday, June 3 through Sunday, June 6. We will reopen Monday, June 7 at 10 a.m. Our friend Steve Roach with the League of Michigan Bicyclists asked us to pass the word along on a hearing in Grosse Pointe about bike lanes. Here are the details: Designated Bike Routes in the Pointes: Open Community Forum for the GP Chamber's Live Well in GP Designated Bike Routes Initiative Wednesday, June 9 6:30 -7:30 p.m. Connelly Auditorium @ Beaumont Hospital, 468 Cadieux, Grosse Pointe. For more information, please contact the G P Chamber 313 881-4722 or www.grossepointechamberofcommerce.org

There will be another hearing for Complete Streets up in Lansing on June 10. Our friends with the coalition are doing great work, but make sure your legislator knows that his or her constituents support this. There are organizations pushing hard against it, so we need to remain vocal. Follow their work here.

Our June tours feature some old favorites (Eastern Market, Architecture, Grandmont Rosedale and Creekside) as well as some newbies (Gallery Scene, Family, Public Art). They are starting to fill up, so check your calendar and choose one for the month! Read more and register here.

Hope everybody had a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend Stizz

This weekend, we are offering special discounts to anyone with a Movement wristband or that is a Detroit Couch Crash participant:

• $10 for 2 hours
• $18 for a half day
• $25 for a full day
• $40 for 2 days
• $50 for the entire 3-day weekend

All rentals include locks and helmets.

We will be open shortened hours -- 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. -- on Memorial Day, May 31.

We have 3 tours this weekend, one of which (Civil War History) is sold out. But have no fear, there are spots remaining on our ever-popular Eastern Market Tour (Saturday, 5/29 at 11 a.m.) and Techno in the 313 (Sunday, 5/30 at 2 p.m.). Find out more and make a reservation at www.wheelhousedetroit.com/tours.

We had a family from Florida join us on last weekend's Eastern Market Tour. They made good use of our baskets, as you can see!

Ride of Silence 05/19 + Bike to Work Day 05/21

This year's Detroit Ride of Silence will take off from Scott Fountain on Belle Isle at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 19. This slow paced, silent ride will commemorate cyclists that have been injured or killed while biking. Friday, May 21, is Bike to Work Day. Detroit Synergy's Detroit Bikes! is hosting the event, which has three options, all of which end Downtown at Campus Martius:

• Ride 1: Woodward Ave ride (Royal Oak/Ferndale/Midtown)
• Ride 2: Jefferson (Grosse Pointe/East Side/Rivertown)
• Ride 3: Michigan Ave ride (Dearborn/Mexicantown)

Find out more here.

Parking info

Due to construction on Atwater Street, our parking lot is currently not available. If you are coming by for a longer visit, we suggest locating street parking (try Woodbridge), or parking in the Beaubien Place Garage or a General Motors surface lot (details below). The Beaubien Place Garage is open 24 hours a day and is located near the Renaissance Center on Beaubien between Jefferson & Atwater.

Rates: Mon.-Fri.: $3 per hr./Maximum daily rate of $12 Sat., Sun. & Holidays: $3 per hr./Maximum daily rate of $6

How to get from the Beaubien Place Garage to the Wheelhouse……we suggest walking along the Riverwalk!  Simply exit the garage, walk towards the river and head onto the Riverwalk, turn left (heading east) and we are about 3 blocks up.   For a map and walking instructions, please click here!

There is a General Motors surface lot at the intersection of St. Antoine & Atwater, which is two blocks west of the shop. It has a maximum rate of $3, so it is cheaper and closer than the Beaubien Place Garage...but it is not always open on the weekends. So you might want to try it first and if it's not open, use the garage just one block west.

We are sorry for any inconvenience, and feel free to call us with any questions. Kelli + Karen 313.656.2453

Bike racks on the brain

As Detroit becomes more bike friendly, more and more businesses and institutions are installing bike racks -- which is great, no doubt about it. What is frustrating, though, is to see funds and good intent wasted when, simply put, the bike rack is not functional. This occurs when the rack is poorly designed or poorly placed. The sad thing is that it is not inherently more expensive to buy a properly designed rack, or even build one. A great example of a do-it-yourself rack is at the Woodbridge Pub. It uses varying lengths of metal pipe and couplers for a functional rack that even has a cool industrial look to it.

There are several standard racks that are great: The post and loop, which you can find at Mudgie's Deli and the simple inverted-U, which can be seen below.

Landscape Forms, which is a Michigan-based company, makes a couple of very functional racks with pleasant designs. The Pi is a take on the inverted-U and the Bicilinea is based on a design you might see employed in Europe. We really like how the angle makes it easier for many frame sizes to lock up to the rack. Another great basic design can be seen right here at Rivard Plaza. (Not at all our doing!) There are lots of them, they are well-spaced and well-placed! This rack is a step up from the inverted-U and the post and loop because the angle, like the Bicilinea above, accommodates many different sizes and shapes of frames. They do take up more room though, so if space is limited go for the inverted-U or post and loop, which are both perfectly adequate.

Onto the bad. The wave rack, which can be found everywhere. Why is it bad? Unlike the inverted-U, there is only one possible connection point to the frame of a bike. The frame is the point, people. It's the most valuable part of a bike.

The worst bike rack of all is the classic "comb" rack, the kind you probably used at elementary school. There's one of these at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center as well as at the Broadway People Mover Station. There is no place to lock a U-lock to, except at either end, and all the interior spots are great -- if all you care about is your front wheel. Say no to comb!

Here are some links that talk about good and bad examples of racks, they really help you get the idea.

http://www.commuterpage.com/TDM/pdf/bad%20examples.pdf

http://www.sacbike.org/shopbybike/

http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?a=58409&c=34813#rack

http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/cp/assets/06_bicycleparking.pdf

One last quick note. Designing your own rack, whether to save money or to add a creative bent to a functional item, is awesome. And totally encouraged. Just make sure to consider the goal of the end object: something to lock a bike to. If that sounds obvious, well, you should see some of the racks out there. They look rad, but if you can't lock your bike to it, it's just an ornamental sculpture. A prominent example of artsy racks can be found in NYC, where David Byrne, an avid cyclist, designed nine iconic racks. That, importantly, also work.

If you are thinking about installing a rack - yay! - swing by the shop or shoot an email to info@wheelhousedetroit.com. Kelli and Karen have tons of information on styles, specs and prices.

Upcoming tours & rides

Hey all, We have a busy week ahead, so we wanted to make sure we got the word out about what is keeping us running around like crazy people!

This Saturday, we have the ever-popular Hamtramck tour. We'll be stopping at Hamtramck Disneyland, the Power House, Public Pool Gallery, Polish Art Center and, for a snack, Cafe 1923. The tour is led by Wheelhouse co-owner (and former Hamtramck resident & schoolteacher!) Kelli Kavanaugh and guided by Jason Friedmann, Hamtramck's community & economic development director. The ride takes off at 10 a.m. There are 5 spots remaining as of Tuesday, May 11, so reservations are highly recommended.

Next up, we have Farm to Fork, our urban agriculture tour, on Tuesday, May 19 at 5:30 p.m. This one is ked by Kido Pielack, the Greening of Detroit's urban agriculture education coordinator. This will be a great opportunity to engage with farms and gardens growing food, ride the streets the food travels, and experience the spaces where food reaches consumer's forks. As of Tuesday, May 11, there are 9 spaces remaining.

We also have a private tour of Detroit's breweries for a group of friends on Sunday, May 17 and a sold-out tour of Eastern Market on May 22. We will likely be adding more Eastern Market tours to our roster. You can view our entire schedule and register for any tour at wheelhousedetroitcom.tours.

Also next week, we have the annual Ride of Silence. This event is an international, silent, slow-paced ride (max. 12 mph) in honor of those who have been injured or killed while cycling on public roadways. We'll take off from Scott fountain on Belle Isle at 7 p.m., so get there a bit early to sign a waiver and such.

Lucinda Means Advocacy Day

If you are all fired up about making streets safer for cyclists, consider heading to Lansing on May 26 for Lucinda Means Advocacy Day. League of Michigan Bicyclists hosts a day of meeting with lawmakers and, of course, a bike ride! It costs $10 and starts at 8:30 a.m.

The tentative schedule is:

8:30 am - Bike rally leaves from MSU Bikes to State Capitol 9:15 am - Opening session 10:15 am - Meetings with Representatives and Senators 1:00 pm - Lunch on Capitol grounds 2:00 pm - Group photo on Capitol steps 2:30 pm - Lansing by bicycle tour

This year, LMB is joining forces with Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance and Michigan Mountain Biking Association for a triple team of bike-related issues.

Find out more and register here.