Still more Tour de Troit talk
Friday, October 1st, 2010Additional Tour de Troit ride reports have been posted in some local blogs and web columns.
First is a guest column in the Heritage Newspapers titled, Tour de Troit eye-opening ride. It’s a bit heavy on the outsiders OMG-there’s-blight theme, but it also give a nod to some optimism.
There’s a youthful, arty and optimistic vibe among the ride’s organizers. In pockets along the route, one encounters that same vibe in the neighborhoods. Sometimes it comes from just three or four homes or stores with vitality, a grouping surrounded by scary wasteland.
Next is from the very intriguing blog, Bike, Books & a Little Music. The author Charlie has a nice summary of both the Critical Mass ride and the Tour de Troit. Woven into the story are some great photos, including the one shown here.
The Transport Michigan web site offers a very comprehensive look at the Tour de Troit.
The Tour’s dedicated organizers deserve credit for their success. But they’ve also got larger trends blowing at their back: a resurgent interest in rebuilding the American city (and Detroit especially) as a sustainable, just, and prosperous metropolis, and an emerging global movement advancing bicycling as a healthy means of transportation in these times of sedentary lifestyles, economic dislocation, and mounting climate change. Given the symbolism of bicycling in the world’s automobile capital, the Tour’s ascent is a bellwether of truly national significance.
“It’s just like Amsterdam, with helmets,” one rider exclaimed as the Tour prepared to depart.
Is the Tour’s success reflect this renewed interest in urban environments?
Longtime cyclist Karen De Coster wrote a fine article that covered much more than just the Tour. Its title asks the question, Is Detroit a Bicyclist’s Paradise?
As we ride, people pop out of everywhere to watch. Businesses and shops empty out. Who can resist watching a line of 3,000 cyclists passing by? People hang out of apartment and residential home windows – waving, cheering, watching, and smiling. My friend’s 18-year-old daughter said she was quite taken by that whole experience. She had only seen and known about the warts of Detroit, with its all-too-obvious ramshackle topography. Yet there is another and more extraordinary side to the city, one that most people never experience because they only zing through Detroit on freeways or crawl along the surface streets behind glass.
Unfortunately, perceptions are often built on hearsay rather than concrete experience. It’s easy to sit around all day watching anemic television programming and news bites, yet pretend to know what’s going on outside of the uninspiring shelter so many people create for themselves. Criticism is an important outcome of critical thinking, but it should be the culmination of one’s own experience and taste, not the result of impetuous me-tooism. Accordingly, getting out and seizing the adventure firsthand is the only valid way to form judgments and gain knowledge of the orbit around you. So, even if Detroit is not exactly the traditional bicyclist’s paradise, spontaneously exploring the city and its history on two, non-motorized wheels is undeniably a memorable experience.
We agree. Bicycling is a great way for people to see and experience the real city of Detroit.
When Detroit gets back on its feet, will we credit the Tour de Troit for helping thousands of Metro Detroiters gain a more accurate view of the city, its people, and its opportunities?