100 Things To Do In Holland Before You Die: #57 - Rent An E-Bike At Velo City Cycles

I'm taking some creative liberties here - I've never actually ridden an E Bike.

BUT

Velo City are homies. Back in their old location on 8th Street, they helped me build up a road bike from scratch. They're always willing to lend a hand to stuff like that, with an ample parts department, and the know-how to offer any advice on wrenching your bike, or having them do it for you. They're some of the best bike mechanics in the city.

With the exception of the CoVid era (2020, 2021), I've been to at least one of Velo City's Tuesday Night Rides a year since 2017 or so. In 2024, I intentionally made a point to ride with their groups almost every week! I made a few posts on Instagram this summer, sharing their posts that you can see my big dumb face in. Their community outreach (in group rides, social media, and community activism) is second to none - they run mentorship programs for young children on bikes, casual ice cream or beer rides, weekly Tuesday Night Rides (Tulip Time through Labor Day...with 5 levels of difficulty, so there's a ride for almost everyone), and besides that, they're always working on community outreach and partnerships.

In their current iteration, they've been on River Ave. just outside of downtown, since 2013. Brad and Jenny White bought the business from Tom and Leon Slikkers, who owned the original shop location on 8th Street in the same building complex as The Curragh.

I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone interested in bicycling around Holland, Michigan to stop in at Velo City and see what's going on!

Comments

Junk Food Review: Chocolatey Payday.

I saw an ad on my Instagram page for a chocolate-covered Payday bar. Jokingly, I took a screenshot, and posted it on my stories asking the question "Isn't this just a Baby Ruth?" A friend responded by saying that no, a Baby Ruth is peanuts surrounding caramel and chocolate-flavored nougat; the chocolate-covered Payday is peanuts in caramel-flavored nougat, dipped in chocolate. Now, candy bars are made from a few common ingredients: Chocolate, peanuts, nougat, and caramel. Chocolate and nougat is something like a 3 Musketeers. Chocolate, nougat, and caramel is something like a Milky Way. All 4 makes a Snickers bar. Chocolate and Peanuts is a Mr. Goodbar. Chocolate and caramel is either a Caramello or a type of Milky Way. Peanuts and caramel (no chocolate) is a Payday. And, chocolate, peanuts, and caramel led to the confusion that took me down the road to writing this article in the first place. I did what any sane person w...

The Eddie Bentz Bank Robbery

Prohibition is one of the most storied periods in American history. Urban myths and legends abound nationwide, with tales of folk heroes like Al Capone, Babyface Nelson, and John Dillinger. Tall tales are woven around organized crime, wild bootleggers, underground saloons, and well-dressed gangsters. There's something uniquely American about the DIY ethos of taking matters into your own hands, making illegal alcohol, and selling it through clandestine channels; stickin' it to the man like those in the illegal alcohol industry did. These stories are immortalized in movies like The Road To Perdition and Public Enemies, as well as TV series like HBO's Boardwalk Empire and, well, PBS's Prohibition. Many lakeshore towns in Western Michigan have tales of organized crime and bootlegging. Easy access to Lake Michigan meant that bootleggers had easy access to boat routes, safely out of reach of authorities. Booze was funneled in from Canada, then taken by boat to cities all aro...

What's The Deal With Charlie's Dump?

Charlie's Dump, the Georgetown Soccer Bowl, and Rosewood Park all describe the same common area in Jenison, Michigan, at the northeast corner of 20th Ave. and Rosewood St. It's, simply put, a giant pit surrounded by residential subdivisions (and lately, a nice playground). It was our local sledding hill. It was where we'd go in the winters. Every year, it seemed, one kid would come to school with a broken arm. There were low-key "gangs" that would push and shove you if you went down the wrong side of the 4-sided structure. And, late at nights, the bad kids (you know, the ones who would smoke cigarettes underneath the Rush Creek bridge on 12th Ave. or ride BMX bikes behind the Pizza Hut on Baldwin) would tip over the port-a-potties and push them down the hill. Starting at the rim and going down the hill, there's a bump about halfway down that served as a launch ramp for kids on sleds. The really cool kids could manipulate their sleds mid-air, doi...

Tulip City Dispatch

Search This Blog