if you find yourself biking, busing or walking in the wintertime, congratulations!  You, my friend, are a Winter Warrior.

Come celebrate your Winter Warrior-ness with other like-minded folks during Downtown Ann Arbor’s Winter Warrior event!

Winter Warrior will be happening on Saturday, Feb 6th from 12-6pm.

Restaurants and cafes will have outdoor seating and there will be discounts to downtown stores.  Restaurants and cafes will be bringing out their sidewalk furniture, and those guests who sit outside will enjoy specials such as $2 draught beers and $1 hot drinks (tea, coffee, soda, etc.).  Restaurants and cafes will be bringing out their sidewalk furniture, and those guests who sit outside will enjoy specials such as $2 draught beers and $1 hot drinks (tea, coffee, soda, etc.). All you have to do is grab a drink, get your receipt stickered and then visit one of the following stores for your discount.  These stores should have balloons outside them to let you know they are participating.

Winter Warrior Discounts:

Here is a list of our participating retailers and the discounts they are offering:

Salon XL – 20% off products
Moosejaw – 20% off any one, regular priced item
Salon Vox – 20% off products
Schakolad – discounts on hot drinks and prebooked Valentine’s orders
Sole Sisters – an additional 10% off sale items, 15% off regularly priced items.
Cupcake Station – free regular coffee with a $2 purchase
Crazy Wisdom – 15% off one item
Acme Mercantile – 20% off regularly priced merchandise (Saturday Only)
Elmo’s T-Shirts – a FREE Michigan bumper sticker($4.95 value) with the purchase of any t-shirt at regular price (not already on sale) and a FREE tin lunch box ($9.95 value) with the purchase of a second t-shirt. 1 shirt, 1 sticker . 2 shirts, sticker and lunch box, a $14.90 value. Saturday and Sunday, Feb.6,7
Carillon Chocolates – BOGO ice cream cones or BOGO coffee (Saturday & Sunday)
Ann Arbor Art Center – 10% off in gift shop, 20% off for members

Also, there will be on-street bike parking in front of Mighty Good Coffee and Schakolad!

In the olden days, if you had a suggestion for bike parking in downtown Ann Arbor, it wasn’t very easy to figure out how to get that request considered.   Starting today, the DDA is making is easier for anyone to request bike parking downtown.  The DDA now has an online bicycle parking request form.

According to the DDA, you can use this form for the following reasons:

If you know of a downtown location that could benefit from additional bicycle parking, you have noticed a hoop in need of repair, or an abandoned bicycle – we want to hear from you. Please use the following form to make requests related to bicycle parking in the DDA area.

So consider yourself empowered to request more downtown bike parking.

Click here to check out the bicycle parking request form.

As long as it’s cold outside, we might as well enjoy it, right?  That’s the thinking behind downtown’s first Winter Warrior event, happening on Saturday, Feb6th from noon-6pm.  There will be special discounts on food and drinks, some special retail deals, plus we’ll be bringing out some of the on-street bike racks!

So if you bike or walk to work during the winter, reward yourself during the Winter Warrior event.  More info is below:

Calling All Winter Warriors February 6th

Saturday, February 6, 2010 Noon to 6pm

Become a Winter Warrior! This community event is all about encouraging the community to get outside and enjoy downtown Ann Arbor at a time of year during which coming outside is not quite so inviting. Restaurants and cafes will be bringing out their sidewalk furniture, and those guests who sit outside will enjoy specials such as $2 draught beers and $1 hot drinks (tea, coffee, soda, etc.).  Some businesses may also be offering food specials. Guests will receive a stamp on their receipt redeemable at participating downtown retailers for special warrior discounts. This is our way of saying, “Thank you for coming out and supporting our downtown businesses and community!”

Click here to view all of the Winter Warrior discounts.

Participating Downtown Businesses and Organizations Include:

Salon XL
Moosejaw
Jolly Pumpkin
Arbor Brewing Company
Cafe Felix
Salon Vox
Schakolad
Sole Sisters
Cupcake Station
BD’s Mongolian BBQ
Crazy Wisdom
The Blue Tractor
Grizzly Peak
Mighty Good Coffee
Acme Mercantile
Elmo’s T-Shirts
Carillon Chocolates
Ann Arbor Art Center

Click here to view all of the Winter Warrior discounts.

Starting today there is now some on-street bike parking in three different locations in downtown Ann Arbor.  This is temporary parking that will be around during the warmer months.  Each on-street bike parking rack holds about a dozen bikes.  The racks are located in front of the People’s Food Co-Op on Fourth Ave, Arbor Brewing Company on Washington, and Bivouac on State Street.

Here are some pictures of the one at the People’s Food Co-op.  It already has some bikes in it!

This post comes from Commuter Challenge Ambassador Jonathan from Inner Circle Media.

After the Bike-to-Work Day festivities this morning, I got talking to a friend of mine about biking in general. He sent me this YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSD5MsQuVo

How excellent would it be to have one several of these in downtown A2? Much more space efficient than our current lockers, I’d think.