Detroit Bike City!

Our booth at Detroit Bike City.

It has now been a week since Detroit Bike City, so it's about time we reminisced.
When we visited Detroit together in early February, it became clear that arriving in time for Detroit Bike City would be a fantastic idea. This, however, meant moving our intended departure date up by nearly a month, giving Kyle just enough time to give enough notice to his job and house. Meanwhile, I decided not to go to Mardi Gras or Honk TX, opting to head back East and help him prepare for the move. The month that followed our return to NYC was hectic, a little scary at times, and surprisingly productive.
We had one day to rest in between our cross-country move and Detroit Bike City. The twenty mile bike ride back from the airport gave us a chance to clear our heads and get to work on preparations for the expo. The next morning we awoke to find snow outside the window, dragged ourselves out of bed, and bundled up for the sort of Midwestern winter we had been expecting. Everything fit perfectly into the cargo bin of the Schooner and we set out for the Cobo Center bright and early. This was our first real day out in town since we arrived.
It was a relatively short, but slushy, ride downtown. We were disappointed to see only one cyclist on the road aside from ourselves, although unsurprised to learn that she was representing the Hub and Back Alley Bikes. We rolled our rides right into the hall and set up our display. Anyone who hadn't loaded into the hall the night before had been instructed to do so by hand on Saturday. Fortunately for us, commuting by bike meant that we were essentially given permission to drive our "truck" right up to the table. The bicycle I had ridden served as our coat rack while the cargo bike sat proudly on display. The pools of water melting beneath them gave us endless street cred throughout the day, or so we were told. In fact, people were bewildered that we were deliberately choosing to live inside Detroit without a car. We found this a strange reaction at a bicycle show inside of Detroit proper.
Since we had only just begun as Freighty Cat, our booth was humble and quite improvised. After a botched attempt at hand-made linoleum stamps the night before, we agreed that having no business cards was just fine. Instead, we had a mailing list inside of an old leather-bound journal, a corkboard which invited visitors to list what they would like on a cargo bike, a vintage suitcase which held a slideshow-showing laptop (propped up on a giant dictionary and folding chessboard, hidden beneath a torn and faded longhi), and a set of stationary in case anyone needed a bootleg business card. The most key parts of our booth, however, were the Schooner and our curious selves. Just arriving in Detroit had been victory enough, so making any whistles and bells merely secondary.
After too much time spent in NYC, we were grateful to find how friendly and inclusive everyone was. One older gentleman even slid Kyle a $20 bill, telling us to buy ourselves a drink later. "Welcome to Detroit!" We could give shout outs to people for ages, so I'll just say that we met a stunning number of cyclists, advocates, fabricators, retailers, and other interesting folks. There was barely enough time to see all of the other booths, and we somehow even missed the transportation panel. Towards the end of the show, we were paid a very friendly visit by the Bullitt dealers from Ann Arbor, who were the closest thing to "competition" we had there. We stopped by their booth later and were pleased to finally meet the Chicago Cargo guy, with whom I have a number of friends in common. Cards and even hugs were exchanged between both sides of the cargo bike business world, which is how it always should be. All told, a very intense and awesome first time out for Freighty Cat.
xo
Leslie
(and Kyle over my shoulder)