I am planning a move to Cleveland potentially in the next month.  I am also considering taking up road biking (bicycle, not motor cycle), making a hefty investment on a road bike.  Before commiting to this, however, I wanted to get a sense of how friendly of a city Cleveland is toward road bikers. 

 

Any input?  Is road biking popular, and are there groups of bicyclers who go out on rides?  Finally, does anyone know of a good bike store around the Cleveland Clinic area that offers good deals on bike sales and service?

 

Thanks.

Plenty of good road biking in the Cleveland area -- but I'm not aware of any cycling retailer in the city itself.

 

Here's one good shop in Rocky River, near-west side, and other locations:

http://centurycycles.com/

 

Local cycling club:

http://www.lakeeriewheelers.org

 

Collection of other local bike sites that might be of interest:

http://www.lakeeriewheelers.org/links.html

 

City's bikeway master plan (includes existing and proposed trails/routes): http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/bike/index.php

 

Here are some bike shops/co-ops in the city itself:

 

Fridrich Bicycle at 3800 Lorain.

http://www.fridrichs.com/

 

Shaker Cycle at 2389 W. 5th Street

http://www.myspace.com/shakercycle

 

Finally, there is the Ohio City Bicycle Co-op on Columbus Road

http://www.ohiocitycycles.org/

 

 

 

Q-dogg,

 

I've been biking on roads throughout Northeast Ohio for the last four or so years, and I've found that the region is pretty bike-friendly.  I've personally never had a problem bicycling here.  Some of the roads around here are not pristine, but I've felt extremely safe both with motorists and on the streets.

 

In terms of groups, there unfortunately aren't a lot of them.  Ohio City Bike Co-op has social rides every Saturday morning.  And there's a group on Facebook that meets every Thursday night for a group ride and treks around Cleveland.  We've tried to start an UO Cleveland bicycle group, but it hasn't caught on.

 

 

 

 

I agree with CD...Biking around the Cleveland area is extremely friendly and there a lot of individual bicyclers, just not a lot of groups to ride with. Like the map as well ExSpectator36, good find.

 

How much are you looking to spend?

 

 

 

Thank you to everyone for the wonderful replies.  This is very helpful.

 

My initial budget is ranging from 1200-1500.  It would be my first bike.  I found 2 bikes that I really liked and fit me well, both all carbon.  One is the Felt Z45, and the other-- which is 700 above my budget (making me wonder if I should reconsider my initial high-end figure) is a BH speedrom.  I'm not sure what components they have, but would look into this before making the purchase.    Any suggestions?  Does anyone know about these bikes?  Thanks!

Well, you guys. I'm torn between two camps. I love biking myself and want a more bike friendly city... but on the other hand (and I expressed these frustrations in the scooter thread) I am growing tired of excuses for bikers in the road not following traffic laws, most notably blowing through red lights.

 

Came to a head last night when I was at the corner of 25th and Detroit, on the Southeast side of the street (currently vacant). I was walking back from my fiance's and was whistling to myself. I got the crosswalk to head to the Southwest corner of the intersection and began walking - the green light favored Detroit in both directions - and was shortly thereafter struck by a bicyclist's handlebars into my side. Thankfully I missed the pedals to my legs - also, I'm 6'3" 210 lbs, so the biker stumbled/fell off the bike.

 

After getting balanced again, he had the stones to ask me if I wasn't aware that this was a bike lane. To which I pointed him to the crosswalk, which now had the red blinking light at "14" on the countdown.

 

All in all, I'm fine, save a small bruise. But man oh man this is wearing on my patience. I've deliberately become more cognizant of bikers when turning right on red - and want to do my part to make the city more bike friendly. But I swear some of these bikers assume the entire roadway is theirs. Which, I would assume, leads to a massive swell of confidence that would allow some of these chodes to wear skin tight biker, spandex uniforms to go for a 3 mile ride around Ohio City.

 

Vent over. 

The best solution would be to legalize the Idaho stop and enforce violations of it.

 

"The Idaho stop is the common name for a law that allows cyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign, and a red light as a stop sign. It first became law in Idaho in 1982"

I've been bike riding a long time and been a pedestrian (and a car driver) and spend lots of time out and about in the city, and I've never seen a bike actually hit a pedestrian.  I agree many bicyclists break the law, but do we really want the police to spend their valuable time ticketing bicyclists when cars are the vehicles that actually kill people daily.

It’s awkward when Parma Heights has better biking infrastructure on its primary thoroughfare than Cleveland.

^As an aside I've ridden this section of Pearl Road at least 2-3x and it's great. Links directly to the MetroParks' Big Creek trails.