How to (legally) install a bike rack

Since we talked about bike rack design last month, we've gotten lots of questions about bike rack installation. So here is a handy-dandy guide to petitioning the city for the legal installation of one on a sidewalk outside your business. Copy the letter below and and fill it in with your info.

June 26, 2010

Detroit City Council c/o City Clerk Coleman A. Young Municipal Center Room 200 Detroit, MI 48226

RE:   Petition for Right of Way Encroachment Approval to Establish / Install an Outdoor Patio / Bike Rack / Bench / Etc. along the Sidewalk on the east side of Woodward, between Temple and Charlotte submitted by Wheelhouse Detroit, LLC.

Dear Honorable City Council Members:

Wheelhouse Detroit is a bicycle shop offering new bike sales, retail, service, bicycle rentals and tours. It opened in 2008, and is the only full-service new bike shop in Greater Downtown Detroit. Wheelhouse currently operates from March through November in a small space located on the Detroit Riverwalk at Rivard Plaza.

This letter from Wheelhouse Detroit requests a petition number to grant approval for a right of way encroachment to install a bike rack along the sidewalk along the east side of Woodward Avenue, between Temple and Charlotte.

Attached you will find the specification cut sheet for the bike rack to be installed as well as a measured drawing indicating the as built location of the bike rack.  As the petitioner, Wheelhouse Detroit understands if the right of way encroachment is approved, Wheelhouse Detroit must enter into a maintenance agreement with the City of Detroit to accept liability for the encroachment and ensure the proper maintenance of the rack.

Please feel free to contact me at 313.656.2453 should you require any additional information in order to proceed.  Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Sincerely, Wheelhouse Detroit

Attachments: The cut sheet isn't necessary, but a site plan is -- you'll just need a measured drawing that shows the building, where the fence for the patio or the bike rack will be installed, where the right of way is (sidewalk, street, property line). For this, it doesn't need to be to scale, but it should indicate the measurements. Maybe throw in some photos of the site.

You submit the package to the City Clerk and in about 2 to 3 weeks you'll get a petition number and someone from the City will contact you, more than likely the Survey Bureau from the Department of Public Works. They will assist you in processing your request, but they need a petition number to start.

Again, feel free to contact us at info@wheelhousedetroit.com for advice or assistance. We love seeing bike racks sprouting up around town, especially when they are done well!

Allied Media Conference & US Social Forum discounts

Wheelhouse welcomes all AMC and USSF attendees to Detroit! We hope you get out on a bike while you're here, even if it's just for a couple of hours. We are extending a special discount:

$10 2 hours $18 1/2 day $25 full day $40 2 days $50 3 days $75 full week

Our long-term rentals include a lock and helmet. We are open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

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.