Midnight Bike Ride through the Motor City

[cherdt]

Last night, chassy and Nim Wunnan and I went on a bike tour of Detroit organized by the University of Detroit Mercy: "The tour is part of UDM's orientation program for new students, familiarizing them with Detroit's many features."

It started a little after 10pm and we finished up at about 2:45am. It was pouring down rain for much of the ride, so they cut a few miles off the planned 35-mile trip by skipping Belle Isle. Chassy and Nim and I were disappointed a little by that--we've never been to Belle Isle, and once you're soaked to the bone it really doesn't matter that it's raining.

• All the incredible homes in the Palmer Park area.
  
• The State Fair grounds and some people constructing the Theater of the Bizarre.
  
• We crossed Van Dyke Ave, about a 1/2 mile south of my old apartment.
  
• Mt. Olivet Cemetery.
  
• City of Detroit Airport, where we stopped for snacks. East Side!
  
• We rode down Gratiot and saw the Better Made Potato Chips factory, the Faygo factory, and Tommy Z's (Zeidman's)--now billing himself as the World's Largest Pawn Broker.
  
• Ford Field.
  
• The Renaissance Center.
  
• Lafayette Coney (where we stopped for another snack).
  
• The big hole in the ground at Grand River and Griswold where Ascension UK used to be.
  
• State Theater, Fox Theater, and Comerica Park.
  
• The Majestic Theater complex.
  
• The DIA--Yoko Ono's freight train was sitting out front.
  
• We were a couple blocks from the Fisher Building; I was hoping we would cut down West Grand Boulevard so as to pass Hitsville USA, but no such luck.
  

Even though it rained, it was a lot of fun. Biking around Detroit gives me a much better idea of the geography than driving ever did.