Here in Ann Arbor, we’re almost out of the snow and ready for the street season to start. For some riders it’s time to dust off the bike from a long season of hibernation and for some it’s simply time to switch the mind set from riding Ray’s and TRP to riding street and dirt. And with each street riding season, comes the familiar patterns of participation.
Every spring just as the snow starts to melt, you can find any number of random local riders cruising through town. Not out for a session or even to ride a familiar place, but just ride through town to see what’s changed over the winter. Being Ann Arbor, there is an ever changing architectural landscape from one month to the next. Your favorite curved wall ride, or stair set might not remain where you once left it, but in it’s place is often something new that is sure to spark the interest of someone new.
Still very early in the year, many locals have but a few short hours to get out of work or class and rush downtown before the brief window of light fades and the winter night sets back in. If the cold temps aren’t enough to persuade you back to the sanctity of a warm home, the patches of black ice that appear from the daytime melt will be.
Once the season is but a few weeks old, we see a shift in time with day light savings and all but the last remaining snow piles have faded. At this point in the season, everyone is ready ride. However the local trails are still a few weeks out from being dry enough to ride without damage and so we congregate.
One long standing tradition that I’ve come to admire is the diversity and unity from the local riders. On any given night, there will be 26″, 20″, 700c, geared, fixed, single, speed trials, suspension and any other form of two wheeled apparatus you can imagine. Everyone is just enjoying the ride no matter what the genre.
However, after only a few short weeks, school starts to let out for the semester, the trails dry up enough to ride and the number of people riding street start to dwindle. This also happens to coincide with a few local events in town which for a few short weeks take over the streets and sidewalks bringing in an increase in security and a lower tolerance for many activities.
Just as the summer festival and fair season winds to a close, the weather takes a turn for the worst bring in nasty heat and humidity. It’s at this time that the street scene starts to grow and the numbers rapidly increase when the weather is to hot to ride during the day. Every season a few riders are lost to girlfriends, jobs, internships or graduation but their void is filled by a new crop of riders. These being riders who only recently have been introduced to the sport. Perhaps they wandered by the local jumps, saw a fellow rider trickin’ a stair set or happen to be the roommate of one of the regulars. Late night session are common running well into the night, with various stops for food and beverage.
With school starting up, the Ann Arbor street scene takes yet another turn and morphs into a completely different beast. This for me, is the most entertaining time to ride street around these parts. Along with the start of school also comes the start of party season and most rides disperse early, leaving out only the dedicated few. Every season a large portion of the group finds that a good street session also serves as an opportunity to talk about talking to girls, though we’ve yet to see any follow through on this. This is also the beginning of the end of the street season despite there being several months left to ride. Every night there will be a call of “Let’s head to the Diag” and you either follow or you find yourself riding alone. The catch however, is that for those who long to keep riding, the Diag has been nicknamed “the place where rides go to die”. It’s at the Diag. that some of the best conversations are had and you learn all sorts of new tech flat land tricks.
As the fall winds on towards winter, more and more riders drop by the wayside due to the increased workload of school and the changing seasons. Shortly, the time change will come and the precious hours of light become almost none. This is also the time when all the dedicated riders are at their finest. Their skills are honed from a season of practice and they know they need to pull that line that they’ve been looking at all summer, otherwise it’ll have to wait till next season. And with so much construction that opportunity may not exist next season. Small groups form and try to squeeze the last remaining warmth and light out of each day only to finally succumb to the winter months. And this is where Ray’s and TRP become the local hangout plus a few garage sessions for those lucky enough to share the interest with like minded rider who has built ramps in the garage.
For the past six season I’ve been part of the ever growing, changing and yet predictable street scene in Ann Arbor. First as a newbie riding a cross country bike, then as one of the riders who just wants to ride off of the largest things they can find, to my current standing as one of the seasoned riders who can talk about when that used to be a curved wall or remember the year of this. Every year something new is built that we can ride, every year new riders are introduced to the sport and every year like the last follows a natural progression of change.
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