The Muskegon County Bicycling Coalition (MCBC) has hosted bike rodeos, riding tours for the Michigan Department of Transportation’s annual convention, candy stops for Halloween, a spring Memorial Ride of Silence, Bike Repair Days, and many other fun, supportive, and inclusive rides within the community.
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A bike rodeo promotes bike safety for kids.
Their bike rodeos, which MCBC hosts several times a year, include low-speed obstacle and skill courses for children to hone their balance, maneuvering, and turning skills. The events are often supported and attended by the local police department and/or Michigan State Police. But the MCBC team is aiming to expand its mission even further.
Greenways Trail Collaboration
“The biggest thing we’re working on is a Greenways Trail Collaboration, with all of the communities in Muskegon County, to build a network of bike trails that will crisscross our county, so recreationists will be able to connect to all of our cities by bicycle,” shares Raymond McLeod, president of MCBC. “This, of course, is a multimillion-dollar plan that will take several years to accomplish, but supporters have already stepped forward in every way imaginable.”
In the near future, work will begin on Broadway Avenue, stretching from Sanford Street on the west to Getty Street on the east. In addition to resurfacing and remarking the road, there will be planters and vegetation added to the area, as well as a bike lane.
Grant money has already been secured for the beginning stages of this project, and backers are committed, McLeod says. This is a crucial section of an overall plan to create a bike route there will take allow a cyclist to travel all the way from the Black Creek Road area to Dunes Harbor Park on Lake Michigan.
Safe Passing Law
The organization is also working on the Five-Foot Safe Passing Law.
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Fetch Brewing Company is one of numerous breweries that sponsor cycling groups.
“MCBC spent months meeting with every city council in our county, advocating for them to pass an ordinance saying that motorists must provide a minimum of 5 feet when passing a bicyclist — in essence, make a safe lane change,” explains McLeod. “I am happy to say that for every single city in our county, it was a no-brainer resolution. They immediately had the empathy to see that there is a big difference between having a side-view mirror come by your elbow within 3 feet as opposed to 5 feet. We were excited that we were going to be the first county in the nation that could say that every city valued their citizens, regardless of their chosen mode of transportation.”
Bike Libraries
The group also is piloting a new program: Bike libraries.
“The MCBC mission is to normalize people using bicycles to run errands, go shopping, commute to work, scoot on over to visit friends. But, sometimes, the cost of a flat tire, or the knowledge on how to fix it, leaves a bike abandoned,” says McLeod. “So, we fixed 60 bikes or so (adult to toddler sizes) and gave them to the Muskegon Heights Public Library. They found a place to store them, how to catalog them like books, and a way to check the bikes in and out. They do the tough stuff — all we did is give them the refurbished bikes. Now, you can walk in and check out a bicycle, just like you can a book. MCBC wrote grants to put lights on the bikes and get locks and helmets to go with each bike.”
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Bike libraries make bikes available to those who otherwise woiuldn't have access to them.
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Some bike libraries operate the same way as their book-based counterparts. Others use the honor system.
The city of Montague has the same goal as the
Muskegon Heights Public Library: Make bikes available to whoever needs them. However, instead of going through the library and the library having to track them, the city is operating on the honor system.
“MCBC has given them 30 bikes, which they label with Montague and MCBC stickers, and place several bikes in various bike racks around town,” explains McLeod. “There is signage that says, ‘Please Return To A Montague Bike Rack.’ And the same goes for Montague as it does for Muskegon Heights: When/if they need more bikes, we’ll give them more bikes, ASAP. If a bike is returned to a rack in need of repairs, MCBC will repair it, ASAP.”
MCBC beginnings
MCBC got its start about 10 years ago with McLeod, his wife, Melanie, and Tom Lindrup, and a simple concept: Get more cyclists riding throughout Muskegon County.
“Our base philosophy was/is, the more riders there are, the more we’ll be noticed, and the more normalized, common courtesy behaviors would develop,” says McLeod. “We began with the Fetch Cycling Group in 2014, sponsored by Fetch Brewing Company in Whitehall. Two years later, we started the Unruly Cycling Group, sponsored by Unruly Brewing Company. A year after that, we inherited the slow-roll group known as Roll On Muskegon, encouraged by Unruly Brewing.”
As their strength in numbers grew, MCBC began to pull together riders that had a broader vision beyond simply a pleasant ride. They wanted to advocate for safer bicycling infrastructure, educate motorists and cyclists about the rights and responsibilities of road users, and to highlight the importance of maintaining the bike trails/routes municipalities that were already identified.
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The Fetch Cycling Group, sponsored by Fetch Brewing Company in Whitehall, started in 2014.
MCBC advocacy takes off
While MCBC doesn’t have plans to support another Bike Library yet, its hope is that the program is immensely successful, and if so, that more people in the cycling community will recognize that they can get fulfillment by occasionally missing a ride of their own to create those opportunities for others.
“The quantity and the quality of our advocacy is really taking off this year,” says McLeod. “We are in the process of developing specific committees to help streamline our volunteerism and are striving to become more efficient at all that we do.”
If you’re interested in learning more about the
Muskegon County Bicycling Coalition, join their group on Facebook and send them a message. If you don’t have Facebook, you can email Ray McLeod at
rmcbike@yahoo.com.