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.