With its start in the early 1980s, the Cherry Capital Cycling Club ranks among the oldest cycling organizations in the Traverse City region. But club members don’t just ride bikes; the 400-member group focuses on giving back to the community, explains Darcie Pickren, the club’s president.
A few recent projects: supporting upgrades like lighting and bike racks at Goodwill Inn; installing a new bike rack in the Elk Rapids Marina; donating a portion of proceeds from its Leelanau Harvest Tour to TART; and helping fund the local recycle-a-bike program.
“Our motive is to promote cycling in all forms—fat bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes. Anything relating to cycling, people can come to us with a proposal,” Pickren says.
Membership includes new riders to experienced racers, with a fair number of older riders, she acknowledges. “Cycling club is more for, I don’t want to say retired people or retirees, because it’s not the bulk of membership, but there are a number of retirees who have time to devote to being mileage junkies if they want to,” she says. “We have a lot of after-work and weekend riders, and some people who come up for the tours—the Leelanau Harvest and Ride Around Torch tours. That’s the beauty of it, everybody and anybody can ride a bike.”
Cherry Capital Cycling Club also sponsors the annual Ride of Silence, held the third Wednesday in May. Participants ride in silence for people who have been injured or killed while riding a bicycle. The club’s website features a calendar listing group rides (one or more rides nearly every day of riding season), area bike shops, area trail information and other resources for cyclists.
This Bike Town USA article was originally published in the August 2016 issue of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine.
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