The Globe and Mail newspaper out of Toronto had a chance to ride around Detroit. They went on a bike tour and are apparently giving us the big thumbs up.

Detroit’s old nickname, the “Paris of the Midwest,” does not roll off the tongue as smoothly as it might have in 1928. The city’s last few decades of Detroit’s 300 years have been rocky; thousands of its buildings burned, over half of its population moved away and its industrial strength weakened. But this once-gorgeous, battered city is a place of extraordinary Art Deco skyscrapers, palatial industrialists’ mansions and a vibrant arts community.

A burgeoning green economy is being embraced, replacing cars with bikes and establishing a strong local food movement.

It’s good to burgeon.

Ironically, Motor City is an ideal place to pedal. The Hub of Detroit is a Midtown non-profit bike shop with a mission to foster urban biking. It offers maps and great tips on biking in Detroit’s unique conditions, and profits are directed toward local youth programs. Wheelhouse, another bike shop on the waterfront, offers rentals and tours through Midtown and other parts of the city, encompassing Detroit’s majestic architecture, urban farms and local food movement, social events and its abandoned mansions – a great, safe way to experience the uniqueness of Detroit.

We couldn’t agree more.

Now if only we could get bikes across the Detroit River, our cycling friends from Toronto could take their bike train to Windsor and pay us a visit.

Tags: Detroit, Toronto, Windsor

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 4th, 2010 at 6:03 am and is filed under Detroit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.