BikeFitness.net

If you’re one of the many cyclists who ride in and around the Stony Creek Metropark, the odds are very good that you’ve been passed by TJ Hill.

TJ is 78 years old. And he’s ridden over 500,000 miles in his lifetime. Even now, and for decades, he puts in about 12,000 miles a year.

TJ is Mr. Detroit Cycling and he has quite a story to tell.

Attached to this post is a 60 year old cycling picture of some of his buddies (click it to see it bigger). Check out the hairdos and the clothing. The picture was taken sometime around 1950 or 1951 and is of cyclists who rode with the late Mile Walden, Walden, long time coach of the Wolverine Sports Club between 1937 and his death in 1996.

The color picture shows TJ, second from left, with a bunch of Wolverine riders in 1987 at one of the early MS150′s that ran from Lansing to Belle Isle.

He has lots more pictures and lots of stories and he has generously sent me a bunch. So, from time to time, we’ll post them here.

What follows is TJ’s own account of his early days.  I’ll post some more in a few days.

In the Beginning
Back in the first half of the last Century, during the years 1945 and ’46, in the beginning of my bicycling time I started setting distance goals. My bike was a used fat tire model that my parents had purchased for 10 dollars. In 1946 a neighbor kid named Don Mitasky showed up with a dream bike. It was a Humber. It had a dynahub that ran a headlamp as well as a tail lamp. Don had ridden to Plymouth and suggested I could do it as well. We lived in Detroit on Sussex south of Joy Road and east of Greenfield. It is 15 miles to Plymouth from our home. We left toward the end of a summer day and by the time we arrived in Plymouth it was dark. I was sitting on behind Don guided by the lights on his bike.

The route from home was to go west on Joy Road. We passed Southfield, Evergreen, Burt Road, Spinoza Drive, went under Outer Drive thru a viaduct then passed  Telegraph, and Inkster. Then at Middle Belt the pavement ended so we turned left, south and at Ann Arbor Trail turned right. We followed Ann Arbor Trail into downtown Plymouth and at Main Street we turned around and headed home in the dark. Now then the thing about 1946 was that having just concluded WWII during which time there were no civilian cars in production car traffic was rather light. To get a new car in 1946 you had to get on a waiting list at a dealer or pay money under the table to get higher up on the list. Also in 1946 Greenfield was the edge of the suburbs, fondly referred to as the sticks by those living in the populated city. Thus there weren’t many cars on the road out there in the sticks of western Detroit and beyond.

So anyway we made the 30 mile round trip without incident and soon after looked for other places to ride of similar distance. The next city on the list was Birmingham. We got there by riding to the end of Greenfield at 14 Mile Road then jiggling over to Woodward. Around Woodward and 15 mile we had 15 miles and so we turned around and backtracked to our homes on Sussex.

Sometime late that year my brother graduated from bicycle to a Cushman Motor Scooter. I inherited his bicycle that was more deluxe than mine. I stripped it of all the lights, sirens, fenders and chainguard as it was obvious weight mattered especially when trying to keep pace with someone on an, “English Racer,” with a three speed Sturmy Archer hub gear.

It may have been late ’46 or early ’47 when I did my most ambitious long distance ride on a fat tire bike with one gear and coaster brake. Pontiac was the destination and the route was to go north on Greenfield to Northwestern Highway then northwest to Franklin Road. At that point I turned right, north and soon passed the Franklin Cider Mill and then at Middle Belt jiggled north to the next section of Franklin Road. The road ends inside the city of Pontiac at Woodward perhaps a mile from the center of the city. The distance to Pontiac was  26 miles over what is a very hilly Franklin Road.

I reached that point and then turned around and headed home across the same route and came in with a 52 mile fat tire bike ride. It would be my longest fat tire ride as later in the year I bought Don Mitasky’s Humber for 60 dollars of my own money that I had saved from Baby Sitting and whatever other jobs I had managed to latch onto as a teenager. So in 1947 Don introduced me to Mike Walden at the Continental Sport Shop where he had purchased the Humber. The shop was located on Michigan Avenue just west of Livernois. Thus began a friendship that for me was most rewarding and one that continued till Mike’s death in 1996.

So in 1947 I put aside fat tires and it wasn’t until 1983 when I got my next fat tired bike. Of course at that time they were known as Mountain Bikes and with what seemed like a zillion gears rather then the one gear that was on my first two bicycles.

- By TJ Hill, bicycle aficionado

Thanks, TJ, for sharing this. We look forward to hearing more of your bicycle stories…. and riding with you out at Stony.