Can bikes be used as part of a canoe/kayak shuttle? Dave Olson has been doing it for years. Vicky and I tried it on July 4. We paddled the Crow River from the Lake Rebecca canoe launch to a take out in St. Michael. From there I pedaled back to pick up the car using a marked bike route from the Twin Cities Bike Map. It worked well and offered two advantages over the traditional two vehicle shuttle. We needed only one car and I got to kayak and bike in the same day.

This story showed up in the online version of the Star Tribune on June 6, 2019.. It will appear in the print version on Friday, June 7, 2019.

A spring bikepacking trip through the Driftless Area punishes — and exhilarates/

66th St in Richfield has one way separated bike lanes on each side of the road. This is the way bike lanes should be built. Thank you Richfield.

The flood waters have receded significantly in the last couple of weeks, but the road into Fort Snelling is still closed. That required some extra research. Easy enough to do since road barriers are designed to keep cars out, not bikes. Here’s what I found. The flooding did a number on the park road.

Bikeverywhere is proud to announce that it was recently recognized as a Featured Publisher at Avenza Maps.

The Driftless Area is a unique geologic feature of the upper Mississippi River. Four major glaciers passed through the upper Midwest in geologic time; flattening hills, filling in valleys and leveling the landscape, but none of them touched the Driftless Area of what is now SW Wisconsin, SE Minnesota and NE Iowa. The result is a highly dissected land of ridges, valleys, trout streams and rivers. The landscape is dotted with small family farms, wooded hillsides and rural communities.

This bike tour takes it all in with a mix of paved and gravel roads, long ascents to ridges followed by equally long descents into valleys. It crosses the Mississippi River twice and passes Amish farms, bakeries and buggies. Average daily distance is 50 miles, but with numerous campgrounds, hotels and B&Bs along the way, the options for changing up the daily ride are endless. You will be challenged physically by the hills and rewarded endlessly by the scenery and small town friendliness.

Driftless Area Bikepacking

Adventure Cycling Association, the national organization for bicycle touring, will do a presentation at REI Bloomington Wednesday evening, February 20. It’s a great organization and has inspired me to continue bike touring for years.

The Cycling Museum of Minnesota, that little engine that could, keeps chugging along, producing exhibits and talk series that reflect the wide range of cycling activities in Minnesota. The latest, called LifeCycle, may be their most ambitious to date.The exhibit, two years in the making, profiles eleven wildly different members of the Minnesota Cycling Community in photos and interviews.

Some of the profiled members are well known in the cycling business: Steve Flagg, founder of Quality Bicycle Products, Erik Noren of Peacock Groove fame and Eric Hawkins, owner of Park Tool Company.

Others are better known to bicycle advocates:: Cynthia McArthur and Louis Moore.

Looking for a place for some unstructured exploring?Try the southeast shore of Lake Minnetonka and areas east. This is an area where you can wander around on low traffic roads that twist and dip and wind through towering trees and tony homesteads. The best places to explore are the peninsulas that define Lake Minnetonka’s iconic bays such as Gray’s Bay, Robinsons Bay and Carsons Bay.

The attached map shows a recent ride with Dave Olson. The route starts in Hopkins, works its way northwest, then drops down to cross the Gray’s Bay Dam. From there we wandered through Woodland, Deephaven and anywhere we thought might be interesting. This isn’t meant to be a tour guide, just a hint of where you can explore. The two red pins, or placemarks, mark the location of the stone arches shown below, two of the more unusual discoveries along the route.

Mobile Twin Cities Bike Map

The new Trailhead at Theodore Wirth Park is an impressive building with the potential to strengthen outdoor activities in Minneapolis. This has been part of a long term project to bring mountain biking and cross country skiing into the city and make these sports available to a more ethnically and financially diverse group of users.

Currently it’s just an impressive building and some new mountain bike trails, but a restaurant, classes and new activities are in the works.