Bike rides near downtown build community among cyclists

Everyone loves a parade, but they don’t expect to see one in Toledo on a Tuesday night.

“People will come out on their porch and wave to us,” said Alexa Lang, one of the organizers of the B Team Bike Club. “The kids will be yelling out ‘Pop a wheelie!’ and run along with us as we’re biking down the road.”

A swarm of double-wheeled cyclists meets at Levis Square downtown to meander, as part of the B Team Bike Club, a club that’s proud to be made up of casual cyclists.

“None of us were friends before this all started,” Ms. Lang said. “We all have just met each other, and we’re all still meeting each other.”

For various reasons, the founders of the club, a hard group to designate completely, started cycling and pushing to involve other cyclists in their community-based trips.

“It wasn’t so much that we wanted to start a bike club,” said Casey Rupp-Scott, one of the founders. “We crossed paths a lot,” and organically the group imposed a loose structure.

Tuesday night, meet at 6:30 p.m. in Levis Square and leave at 7 p.m., and like that a place and time was established.

“Toledo's bike community already existed, if anything, I just helped connect people,” said Ashton Tammerine, one of the founders of the group, and a daily biker.

Mr. Tammerine, originally from the city of Oregon, was introduced to biking as an alternative to cars in Columbus, and for the past 10 years he has enjoyed the reprieve from the cost of a monthly car payment, gas, and insurance. His partner, Ms. Lang, has just in the past few years taken up the lifestyle without an automobile, and one of the main reasons the couple has made the inconvenient change has been community.

“I felt like there were opportunities for older people to ride bikes, and kids still ride bikes, but people our age, there wasn't really anything cool to do on a bike” as a young 30-something, Mr. Tammerine said.

So the couple, along with others, set out to make biking a general Toledo activity, not just for kids or the elderly or the competitive.

“We’re not the A team. That’s why we’re the B team,” Mr. Tammerine said. “That’s kind of how it got the name.”

An unofficial leader, Mr. Tammerine has only missed one bike ride since the group got its official start date on June 6, 2023, and since then the group meets regardless of the weather.

“We haven’t taken a Tuesday off the whole year,” Ms. Lang said.

“It seems like it’s not possible, but once you gradually go into it,” the transitions don’t seem as severe, she said, and recommended layering clothes. “When you know that other people are going to be out there, and it’s going to be a really fun time, it doesn’t bother you that it’s going to be 18 degrees. You can’t wait to get out there.”

Some of the founders don’t frequent the group as often as they had, but consistently Mr. Tammerine takes the lead on the rides while other members informally bring up the rear of the group to make sure everyone is safe.

“We’re just out having a good time for no reason. Like, that's the whole idea — is just to have fun riding bikes,” Mr. Tammerine said, and that attitude has gotten a response.

“Sometimes we’ll have 70 people out there on Tuesday,” Ms. Lang said. “When you see 40, 50, 60 people out there, and they’re all excited, and a lot of people have lights on their bikes and stuff, the cars aren’t upset.

“So I think the community, when they see the group, they get stoked to see us.”

The group has helped people gain confidence in riding throughout town, and experienced riders are able to share information on the best practices from getting from point A to B in different areas of Toledo.

“I think it makes people comfortable being out on the roads and comfortable with the trails or paths they could take or how to get to places,” Ms. Lang said.

In the future, members of B Team Bike Club hope to work with the city of Toledo to help make the city more bike friendly.

Cory Wolin, another initial member of the group, said, “We really believe that Toledo could be the next big bike city.”

Members of the group were thankful for the improvements made around town, like Jefferson Street’s bike lane, but felt the bike specific improvements and routes to the city hadn’t been connected yet.

“Moving from one place to another is a necessity of life,” Rupp-Scott said. “To put intention into it [transportation] is something we’ll always be doing.”

But for 50-60 people, intention is bike riding on Tuesday night.