As a follow-up to our advance report on Detroit's first Gears & Beers event, which took place Saturday, we post this response emailed Sunday by Patrick Irwin:
I was one of the people responsible for leading the riders and can tell you the riders were fantastic -- there were no issues or problems -- and it was a great day for all. . . .
I thought your article fairly asked (in a general way) if this event would be safe. The title "What could go wrong" gets answered by "What went right" at this event. We had 350 people biking the streets of Detroit in this event -- dollars spent in the city, a nice dinner at the finish at the Riverwalk hotel, good will among suburban and city riders with residents of Detroit.
These events are actually quite common in other cities and Regina Stocco (event organizer) actually patterned this event from similar bike ride/pub crawls in other cities. We have not really had an event like this.
While any bike event -- and any event that involves stopping at pubs along the way -- represents some level of risk, the risk does mitigated from sampling size (small), monitors in the pubs to keep an eye for any intoxication , the ability of riders to get a ride back to the start via a ride in a chaperoned car should they need one, etc. ...
Please consider joining us on our 17-mile ride, Oct. 18 from the Corktown tavern. This is a free ride -- exploring Southwest Detroit (the neighborhood which I grew up in) and you will get to meet many of the people who rode in Gears and Beers as well as several of the ride coordinators. I think if you get a chance to meet the riders, see how and what we do you will have both fun and a chance to also get some material for your next article: "A city renewed - one pedal at a time."
The link to our ride is https://www.facebook.com/events/765035236890712/
