Please check back in early June for more details as well as how to pre-register for this event!
A popular annual event among local cyclists that spans two counties will take time this summer to remember an old friend.
Bike to Build, run by Clinton-Gratiot Habitat for Humanity, will add a new name – the “Michael Wyllys Memorial Ride.”
Wyllys, 71, who for many years directed donation room operations at the Habitat ReStore in St. Johns, lost a lengthy battle with cancer on Dec. 27, 2021.
“Michael was a great friend, a great volunteer and a great person,” CGHFH executive director L Quinn Lincoln-Keon said. “Bike to Build was important enough to him that we wanted to honor and remember him as part of an event he loved.”
The 13th annual Bike to Build will take place on Saturday, Aug. 6. Riders will leave from and return to Northpointe Community Church, 505 E. Webb Road. Registration is open from 7 to 10 a.m.
The $35 registration fee includes lunch at the church as well as refreshments and other amenities at strategically placed rest stops along the way. Routes range from 20 to 75 miles, and the event – a tune-up for many for September’s DALMAC and other rides – attracted a record 115 riders in 2021.
“We would love to have 200 riders this year,” Lincoln-Keon said.
Proceeds from the event help Habitat in fulfilling its core mission of providing safe, decent and affordable housing for those in need. Habitat also helps people remain in their homes longer with programs like Critical Home Repair, which builds – among other things – wheelchair ramps.
Lincoln-Keon said Wyllys was always an important voice in the planning for Bike to Build and worked hard in his event day role as a SAG driver, picking up riders who had suffered a flat tire or some other mishap.
How the famously humble man would have felt about having his name attached to the event is another matter, but “he deserved it,” Lincoln-Keon said.