In just a short period of time, the Wheelhouse Detroit has garnered some serious fandom. During a recent talk at the Green Garage, I mentioned them and the crowd broke into well-deserved applause.

So the Free Press is showing them a little bit of love too with this article.

Throughout the spring and fall, and occasionally in the summer, the store — run by Detroiters Karen Gage and Kelli Kavanaugh — hosts bike tours that range from about 10 miles to 30 miles or more.

“We have so much fun biking around the city, just going out and experiencing it and seeing new things,” said Gage, 33. “Detroit has a lot of cool neighborhoods and interesting people and great architecture. These bike tours are allowing us to present that.”

The emphasis on guided tours and bike rentals are more examples of how the Wheelhouse has broken the mold for bike shops in Metro Detroit. They’re not just selling bikes.

They certainly taking advantage of Detroit’s relatively high density of unique and historic sites that are never too far of a ride from the bike shop.

The Free Press also included this video coverage from one of their recent Detroit tours.

And like many other of the small, entrepreneurial businesses in the greater Downtown area, they’re accepting Detroit Cheer.

Disclosure: I am a volunteer guide for two Wheelhouse tours this summer.

The Wheelhouse Detroit began hosting neighborhood bike tours this fall.  They are more than your typical bike tour as they raise funds for the neighborhood in which they visit.

Last Sunday was a 26-mile neighborhood bike tour to Detroit’s Eastside to raise funds for the Conner Creek Greenway.

Our tour highlights included:

• the Better Made Potato Chip Factory
• art deco manufacturing buildings along Grinnell
• a red-tailed hawk that flew overhead
• a ride through Mt. Olivet Cemetery
• lunch at the historic Two Way Inn
• Pat’s homemade cabbage soup
• the mound that gave Mound Road its name
• the Dorais velodrome
• the Milbank greenway
• the Conner Creek Greenway

While at lunch, Pat Bosch (Nortown CDC) and Mary Aganowski (Two Way Inn) discussed the history of Norris a.k.a. North Detroit.  Before being annexed by Detroit, it was a small village built around the Mt. Elliot and Nevada intersection.  The town’s founder and main promoter was P.W. Norris.  Norris had a storied history that included helping create then manage America’s first National Park — Yellowstone.

For more background on this historic Detroit area, I recommend reading this Metro Times article.

Last Thursday was another monthly Green Tea event, this time promoting biking in Detroit. It was a great success with a very large and diverse turnout.

Wheelhouse Bike Tours

The Tea began with an introduction from our hosts Kelli and Karen from the Wheelhouse Detroit bike shop on the Detroit Riverwalk. The shop specializes in rentals, service, accessories, and bike tours. They have a freebie Wednesday night ride (9 PM). Now the are offering guided Neighborhood Tours, some of which include lunch. And of course you can rent a Wheelhouse bike as well. Check out the Wheelhouse web site for further details.

400 Miles of Bike Lanes

Next, I spoke to the group about Detroit greenways and the Non-Motorized Transportation Master Plan. The latter was developed by Giffels-Webster and was funded by MDOT. The plan inventoried the many cycling destinations across Detroit, including parks, schools, cultural centers, recreational centers, etc. It looked at how to best connect them with a network of on-road bike facilities — bike lanes and shared signed routes.

In summary, the plan calls for nearly 400 miles of bikes lanes across the City of Detroit that could be implemented during normal road maintenance by simply re-striping existing roads. [Additional details regarding this plan will be posted to m-bike in the upcoming week.]

And while this plan was accepted by Detroit’s Traffic Engineering Division, it had not gone before City Council. The GreenWays Initiative and MTGA worked to change that. Last month Giffels-Webster gave a presentation of the plan to Council President Ken Cockrel’s Green Task Force. We discussed the plan with other City Council members and distributed the copies of it.

On September 8th, City Council will have a discussion of this non-motorized plan. We need pedestrians and cyclists to attend and voice their support during the public comment period. The Council is meeting on the 13th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on September 8th at 11:15AM.

Biking to Eastern Market

Next, the group hopped on their bikes and rode from the Wheelhouse to Eastern Market. We were greeted at Shed 2 by Market President Dan Carmody and a box of healthy snacks. We discussed how to make Detroit more bike friendly and how the Dequindre Cut trail will be an excellent connection between the Riverwalk and the Market.

Special thanks to Kathryn Underwood and others for helping make this Green Tea a big success.