Biking Through Detroit
Ryan Rutledge
Issue date: 3/2/10 Section: Entertainment
Detroit, the city renowned for graffiti and ghettos. But that's not the Detroit I know. Mine is full of architecture and modern art set to the soundtrack of buzzing chains and humming tires. Beat The Train: it means a lot of things to all of its members, but to me it's about breaking out and seeing the city at its best.
Every Saturday between April and October we meet, early in the morning while it is still cool and dark and the city is quiet. To the casual outsider, it is nothing more than twenty figures with flashing lights congregating in historic Fort Wayne park on Jefferson Avenue, just outside of lovely Del Ray. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Del Ray is the epitome of a ghetto, but while we're here it is something more; it's painstakingly beautiful brick work covered in graffiti and boarded up windows. The architecture in the buildings reflects a time when people took pride in the work they did, but years of turmoil have taken a toll. The buildings stand like monuments to what Detroit used to be. Historic Fort Wayne, where the cycling portion of this journey through the city begins, was a fort built to protect the city on the river. But 21st-century Fort Wayne is soccer fields, playgrounds, and parking lots surrounded by barbed wire, a product of the circumstances. We drink coffee and we socialize on family, work, and politics as we wait for the last few stragglers, some riding into the park, others driving in from anywhere in a 50-mile radius.
Finally we start our trek around 6:15 am. We slowly roll through the park to get warmed up and stretched out, down past the river and through tunnels with the telltale signs of bullet holes, past the soccer fields with parking lots already full of mini-vans. On we go, waving as we pass the armed guard at the entrance: he smiles and knows some members on a first-name basis from checking in every Saturday at 6am when the park opens. We spin through the last of Del Ray; the old abandoned factories and burned out houses fade away as we approach downtown and I-75. Colorful jerseys and bikes buzz through Mexicantown amid quizzical stares from elders who are also up enjoying the morning. The city is quiet, so quiet that for once, it feels peaceful.
Every Saturday between April and October we meet, early in the morning while it is still cool and dark and the city is quiet. To the casual outsider, it is nothing more than twenty figures with flashing lights congregating in historic Fort Wayne park on Jefferson Avenue, just outside of lovely Del Ray. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Del Ray is the epitome of a ghetto, but while we're here it is something more; it's painstakingly beautiful brick work covered in graffiti and boarded up windows. The architecture in the buildings reflects a time when people took pride in the work they did, but years of turmoil have taken a toll. The buildings stand like monuments to what Detroit used to be. Historic Fort Wayne, where the cycling portion of this journey through the city begins, was a fort built to protect the city on the river. But 21st-century Fort Wayne is soccer fields, playgrounds, and parking lots surrounded by barbed wire, a product of the circumstances. We drink coffee and we socialize on family, work, and politics as we wait for the last few stragglers, some riding into the park, others driving in from anywhere in a 50-mile radius.
Finally we start our trek around 6:15 am. We slowly roll through the park to get warmed up and stretched out, down past the river and through tunnels with the telltale signs of bullet holes, past the soccer fields with parking lots already full of mini-vans. On we go, waving as we pass the armed guard at the entrance: he smiles and knows some members on a first-name basis from checking in every Saturday at 6am when the park opens. We spin through the last of Del Ray; the old abandoned factories and burned out houses fade away as we approach downtown and I-75. Colorful jerseys and bikes buzz through Mexicantown amid quizzical stares from elders who are also up enjoying the morning. The city is quiet, so quiet that for once, it feels peaceful.
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