Photo by Kelly Tucker / Facebook

This has to be one of the best bike club names ever: GMOB, which stands for Grown Men on Bikes.

Their Facebook page has a great description for the group, too.

We don’t ride bikes cause we have too. We ride bikes cause we love too. We love to network and promote bike riding in the Metro Detroit area and be a positive force in the rebirth of the great city of Detroit!

GMOB joins the East Side Riders and Downriver Highriders among the recently formed riding clubs in Detroit — a very welcomed sign that bicycling is growing organically throughout the city.

Just hours after writing about the growing list of bike events in Detroit, we stumbled on some others.

From Detroit Synergy:

August 20th at 9 AM: Pedal Cruise

It’s almost time for that annual north Woodward Avenue pagan festival, the Woodward Dream Cruise! That means it’s also time for the Third Annual Detroit Bikes! Pedal Cruise Bicycle Ride! We’re not anti-car; we’re just pro-bicycles! Many of us firmly believe that the best way to experience our City is on a self-propelled vehicle!

The primary aim of the Pedal Cruise is to bike from our City’s birthplace, the Detroit Riverfront, to the world-famous (thanks to Eminem) 8 Mile Rd. (why isn’t it called 8 Miles Road?) and back. We will parallel as well as cross Woodward Avenue, though only a modest part of the ride will take place on Woodward itself.

More details

From the Hub/Back Alley Bikes:

August 20th at Noon: 3rd Annual Safe Streets Youth Ride

Hey everyone! It is time to get energized for our big annual ride. There are many more people riding in Detroit now than have in recent memory. There are also many more groups doing rides together. On August 20th we will be gathering in our back alley at noon for our big annual ride. What makes our ride different? Well, the primary focus is our youth. We are inviting all our Youth that have completed the Earn-a-Bike program in the past year to bring those bikes out and ride with us. We hope they bring their families with them so they can all ride together. This will be a slow ride so people of all ages can keep up. Afterwards we will have a parent appreciation BBQ.

So what if you didn’t participate in Earn-a-Bike? Well, that is the other part that makes our ride unique – it is a fund-raiser to continue the programming that we provide here in the Cass Corridor. If you would like to ride with our youth, please register at our Wepay.com site. Registration is $25, but if you register before August 13th – registration is only $10. Again, Youth Earn-a-Bike participants and their families ride free.

More details and registration

From the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan:

August 21st at 8 AM: J-Cycle

Hop on! The Jewish Historical Society of Michigan, the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and the Reconstructionist Synagogue of Detroit are leading the way through the streets of Detroit for a fun-filled morning of cycling, learning and bonding. Our tour travels from the beautiful, new Milliken State Park on the Detroit River, along the Riverwalk and through the Dequindre Cut, a landscaped bike path once the Grand Trunk Railroad line and through the city to see such sites as the Hank Greenberg statue at Comerica Park, numerous former synagogues and buildings built between 1902 and the 1920s such as the United Hebrew School building built in 1922 and the new Moishe House on Ferry Street and the Oakland Avenue Schvitz. Don’t miss this first-time event!

More details and registration

From Bike Tech:

August 28th:Third Annual Bicycle Show & Swap Meet

BIKE TECH (@ Balduck Park) 18401 E.Warren, Detroit, Michigan 48236
From 8am – 2pm

Bring out those Vintage, Classics, Road & Track Bicycles and Parts.
Food & Refreshments Available.
Vendor Space Available

$25. – Early Registration
$30. – Day of Show
Table Rental $5.00 additional

For Additional Information…313-884-2453

It wasn’t that long ago that there just weren’t that many group bicycle rides in the city of Detroit. Critical Mass was lightly attended and the Tour de Troit was just a small ride around town.

Now it’s becoming quite a task just to keep up with all of the bike rides.

Last Saturday there was a fundraiser bike ride for an urban garden on Fourth Street. Tomorrow (August 3rd) is the Detroit Agriculture Network urban ag bike tour.

Every Monday is the Slow Roll to Slow Jams ride starting at 8pm from the Woodbridge Pub.

No course is set and all skill levels are invited. The ride ends with the smooth sounds of Erno the Inferno and EastSide Jon – plus many special guests. We’ll be doing this every Monday till it gets too cold and maybe after that.

And there are a three interesting rides scheduled for August 13th. Starting at 8am is the 7th Annual Green Cruise — “Be a solution to Stop Pollution”.

The 7th Annual Sierra Club Green Cruise celebrates walking, biking, running, hiking, skateboarding, rollerblading, and other forms of transportation that are human powered.

The event includes organized bike rides, a parade, childrens crafts and activities, an educational area, free healthy food, green sponsor booths plus much more

Then at 1pm is the inaugural “Art Ride”.

Five sites will be on our 2011 tour (most of the time we’ll be looking at Art) including Disneyland Hamtramck, Heidelberg Project satellite site, Recycle Here! (2-3 areas), 1 site TBA and ending with our Access Arts Scripps Park Public Art Exhibit II opening. At Scripps, we’ll have a fantastic performance piece by James Cornish & Lisa Lamonte. We’ll have a food truck on hand for the end of the bike ride at Scripps for lunch as well (food truck TBA). At each of the tour stops, more info will be given about the piece and location either by the artist or tour guide, giving an in-depth interaction with the piece. We’ll also get a first hand look at the development of the Lincoln Street Sculpture Garden at Recycle Here! and some of their other more private installations inside. A couple of public murals may also be on route!

Donations will be shared among art & bike organizations including The Hub of Detroit’s Saturday/Kids Program, Heidelberg Project, Friends of Scripps Park, Organization #4 TBA and Forward Arts.

Then at 10pm that evening is a Full Moon Bike Ride hosted by Fender Bender.

We’ll ride around Detroit under the light of the full moon and skip the heat of the sun.

This Fender Bender Detroit ride is open to everyone as we try to raise awareness and have fun riding bikes in the night. Meet us at the corner of Cass & Forest, in front of the UU Church (First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit).

There is a new web site that should be launched by the end of this year that will have an event calendar for biking and walking events. Hopefully they’ll be able to do a better job maintaining regional calendar for these types of events.

Have you seen the new bike lanes and bike routes being installed throughout Corktown, Mexicantown, and along West Vernor in Southwest Detroit?

This is not a new project. It started about seven or so years ago with the Greater Corktown Development Corporation and a grant from the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan. The goal was to make the area more walkable and bikeable while connecting it to the future West RiverWalk.

But much has changed since then. Greater Corktown went through financial issues forcing them to hand off the project to the Southwest Business Development Association (SDBA). In taking over the project, the SDBA expanded it to include bike lanes along most of West Vernor, connecting it with their existing trail through Patton Park.

The project design also changed over time, shifting from having some off-road paths to simply bike lanes and bike routes. The latter are being employed on roads that are too narrow for bike lanes.

In the meantime, the wildly successful Tour de Troit has generated additional funds for the project to keep pushing it forward.

Safety Grants

There’s one other piece. The city of Detroit applied for an MDOT grant to improve safety along a portion of West Vernor from Livernois to Waterman. As a result, the city is adding bike lanes along that one mile of Vernor. They’re also adding lighting beneath the viaduct just west of Livernois.

When completed, there will be 24 miles of new bike lanes and 11 miles of signed bike routes.

Building on this success, the city recently applied for seven safety grants and received six. The city is looking to add bike lanes to all six projects in 2012, which includes roads such as Central and West Chicago.

Bike parking, directional signs, and more

And there are additional projects which complement this work.

There are new bike racks being installed throughout the area by a handful of different groups. Have you seen the new cool bike racks at Clark Park? They’re across the street from Cafe con Leche.

Also, the SDBA is also looking at wayfinding — signs and maps that help guide bicyclists through the area. For example, a sign might provide bicyclists with direction and mileage on how to get to specific destinations like downtown, the RiverWalk, Roosevelt Park, and Patton Park. The posted mileage also reminds those who don’t bike just how close some places are — and that perhaps bicycling between them is easier than they may have thought.

This wayfinding project is looking to develop designs that can be used across the city, which would help keep signs more consistent.

Adventure Cycling should have their first of two maps completed this year for their Underground Railroad Bicycle Route through Detroit. That route has been located on West Vernor to take advantage of these bike lanes.

Now wouldn’t it be great if the West Vernor bike lanes could get you to the Rouge Gateway Trail and Hines Drive in Dearborn?

WDET had an interesting interview with Jeanette Pierce from her downtown tour company Inside Detroit. In it Pierce spoke about how challenging in getting people, but especially locals to “confront the perceptions they have about the city” — perceptions that are often shaped by the media rather than visiting the city.

I do feel that I have to work harder with people that are in the region because of that assumption that they know… that they know things… and because of watching the local news and reading the local newspaper… and yeah, I guess if that’s all you saw of Detroit was the crime and the violence and the government mishaps and stuff… it would seem pretty depressing… but that’s not the story of Detroit that we know… that I know as someone living here.

[By the way, Inside Detroit is now offering bike tours in addition to their walking, bus, and Segway tours.]

We believe that bicycle tours in the city of Detroit are perhaps the best way to change perceptions of the city. You’re not protected in an air conditioned glass and metal box, but you can still cover a fair amount of distance. Given the flatness of Detroit and the open roads, bicycling is downright easy. And with huge rides like the Tour-de-Troit and the numerous Wheelhouse Detroit bike tours, it’s seriously fun.

And another fun event changing perceptions is the Motor City Bike and Brew Tours which was recently covered by Detroit Public TV. The bike story begins just after a minute and is nearly 8 minutes long.

The Washington Post also recently wrote about their bike ride through Detroit and included quotes:

• “The light traffic on downtown roads makes the Motor City surprisingly accommodating to visiting cyclists who don?t really know where they?re going.”
• “Had I known about the show the city would put on, I would have gotten on a bike much sooner.”

Also changing perceptions of Detroit is Alex Gallegos’ Detroit Bike City video, which has been watched over 30,000 times in just 23 days. M-live had a nice interview with Alex as well.