Big Mike finally made it out of his office early enough to come on down from Auburn Hills and hit the city streets on his bike.  Big Mike is really the guy that got us both off of our asses and into the woods last february to start and clean up the trails.  It was nice to be riding with him once again that is for damn sure, as we both were sporting our Urban ride bikedetroit gear we started heading west and over the Selden Lodge pedestrian overpass.  I wanted to share with him one the exploration routs I had made earlier in the year and decided to take him over to Patton Park and Holy Cross Cemetary via a modified Mexican town route.

We made it to the beginning of Toledo road.  The old Toledo trail, 1800’s architecture can be found left right here and there, for me it’s cool to be taken back in time via architecture.  I wonder what those buildings have seen from the times of dusty wagon trails and now onto modern day traffic?  Snaking through we ended up on the back side of Patton Park, hit the Pedestrian only trail and made our way into Holy Cross cemetery.  Onto Lapeer park and into Johnny’s place for a cool Molson.  Challenged at first by a tattoo covered fellow about sporting our colors in the bar, we assured everyone we were non violent and that the color is blue like the sky for a good reason.  Many questions were asked about bike Detroit and what we were about?  fun times talking about ditching the car, finding a good release while getting back in shape allowing our wives a rebirth of desire, ( cause how many gals like beer guts anyways? ).

From there Johnny instructed us on how to get to Dearborn Street and we headed on down to Jefferson and the Delray district.  Ma Kovac’s bar was packed that in of itself was one heck of a sight.   Big Mike had the lead and kept it going on bye.  We headed past the old Fort and around the curve onto the rail road tracks so as to avoid Fort Street and Mattie’s truck traffic.  Back onto Jefferson and towards the bridge we had to head back out to Fort this time as the Jefferson road trail under the bridge has been blocked off for 8 years now.  (hey why don’t we all tell him he cant do that either and let the pedestrians on through?)

From there big Mike was on a tear and we headed down Jefferson and along the waterfront on to the GM Towers.  From there we turned North and headed in through Greek Town and made our way over to Jacoby’s for a beer and good conversation. After fielding a few questions about our shirts we headed on up to the brewery to say hi to our friends.  The place was sardine packed, under a wave of humanity it was hard to even walk in let alone up to the counter.  We jumped back on  the bikes and sprinted back to HJ’s for some fish, water and finishing conversation.  Another great night in Detroit with a great partner and friend.

Bike Detroit!  J. Meyers bike explorer