So often m-bike has focused on Detroit bike history prior to 1900. However, much history was made after that, especially through the Wolverine Sports Club.
Last year the Wolverines’ Clair Young passed. He was a ten time Michigan State Champion during the 1940s and 1950s. That’s dominant.
His daughter Sheila Young went on to a very distinguished racing career in both cycling and speed skating — winning some Olympic medals along the way.
Endless Road Media produced this excellent mini-documentary on Clair Young.
This summer is already here at the HUB. We are BUSY! This week is the last week for kids in Detroit Public Schools which means we are going to get even more kids around the shop than we already have. This is great! Also, we have news of a shop in Southwest that some kids are starting up and getting underway along with some schools on the north side that want to start bike clubs. With this much going on we need to hire a youth educator.
This job will include working with youth off site at their schools to help start up shops and educating kids on how to fix up their bikes, working with our Mechanics in Training at our shop and being around on Saturdays for our Youth Earn-a-Bike sessions.
So if you have bike mechanical knowledge, experience with youth and like doing both together then send a resume as quick as you can to jack(at)thehubofdetroit.org
BOBKOFF: Dan Kildee of the national nonprofit Center for Community Progress is an expert on revitalizing vacant and abandoned properties. He says city leaders tend to ignore the little projects like a mountain bike park or an urban garden, instead focusing on huge, splashy plans.
Mr. DAN KILDEE (Center for Community Progress): Build a great big casino complex. Build a great big convention center.
BOBKOFF: Cleveland has advanced plans to build one of each.But Kildee says cities need lots of little projects to turn around former manufacturing capitals like Cleveland and Detroit. Some ideas will fail, others will take off.
We made a suggestion to the Russell Industrial Center folks. They have plenty of space for an indoor mountain bike park — far more than Ray’s — and on-site food and super convenient highway access (I-75 at I-94). With a little grant money for capital investment, this seems like a good bet.
Dorais Velodrome
The web site DetoritUrbex has a little history, including some recent photos of the old Dorais Velodrome near E. Outer Drive and Mound Road. A great deal of cycling history was made at Dorais, much of it was captured in the Mike Walden/Wolverine Sports Club documentary, Catch the Wind.