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Bikeverywhere is looking for a freelance web designer who can maintain the current site in WordPress and has extensive experience working with shopping carts. The current shopping cart is called SHOPP and works with PayPal. I’m open to trying a different cart. Interested designers can contact Doug Shidell via the contact page.
Older versions of the Twin Cities Bike Map showed a bridge crossing from Inver Grove Heights to Newport. It was the only bridge crossing the Mississippi River between Downtown St. Paul and Hastings. The bridge was unique in that it was a privately owned toll bridge that carried cars on the first level and trains on the upper level. It was in rough shape in the early days of the bike map and got progressively worse over the years. First the trains stopped running because the bridge structure couldn’t support them, then the roadway deck began crumbling and eventually the bridge was shut down.
The crossing wasn’t special in a truly functional way. It was narrow, potholed, rusty and it dropped you off at the gates of a large refinery, but there was a charm attached to crossing this relict and the toll, I think it was around 0.35 for bikes, added more than it subtracted from the experience. Equally important, when it closed down it made Newport, Grey Cloud Island and roads in that area less accessible.
Since then DOT has added a bike crossing to the Wacouta Bridge and in 2010 the old toll bridge rose from the ashes as the Inver Grove Heights Rock Island Swing Bridge Recreational Pier. The new pier juts halfway into the Mississippi River and offers great views of islands, back channels, marinas and river floodplain.
Bicyclists can access the Swing Bridge by taking the South.. St. Paul Regional Trail to 66th St, then heading toward the Mississippi River (East). The trail runs north/south along the Mississippi River from Concord St. in West St. Paul to Old Concord St. in Inver Grove Heights.
Now that Minnesota is back in operation, I’d like congratulate the folks at the Cannon Valley Trail and the Root River Trail for providing riders with two great trails for 25 years.
The Cannon Valley Trail, just 40 miles from the Twin Cities, draws a lot of visitors for day trips through its varied landscapes. From Cannon Falls in bluff country to Red Wing in the valley of the Mississippi River, the trail alternately hugs the Cannon River, passes under towering cliffs, runs through prairie grasslands and explores river floodplains. The center of the trail, near the town of Welch and the Welch Ski Hill, is also one of the most popular starting points. From there you can go upstream toward Cannon Falls or downstream to Red Wing.
One of my favorite activities is to ride the trail on a frosty, full moon night in October or November.
You can download the Cannon Valley Trail chapter of Bicycle Vacation Guide or pick up the book and get all of the major trails in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin.
The most popular town on the Root River Trail is Lanesboro with its entire downtown list on the Historic Register of Places. The trail follows the scenic Root River through the bluff country of southeastern Minnesota. It’s a beautiful trail with bluffs, deep woods, the river and rural landscapes sharing the corridor of the Root River. The Harmony-Preston Valley Trail branches off the Root River Trail and follows a quiet creek upstream to bluffs, then climbs for nearly a mile to the small town of Harmony. Explore some of the unusual destinations in Harmony such as the wood carving museum and the toy museum, then fly back down the bluffs on your way back to the Root River Trail.
You can download the Root River chapter of Bicycle Vacation Guide or pick up the book and get all of the major trails in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin.
Shortly after the bridge carrying the Ozaukee Interurban Trail over Interstate 43 opened, I decided to try it out. Looking down, I spotted a couple of bicyclists on the frontage road staring up at the bridge and obviously wondering how to get on the trail. Unfortunately for them, the bridge spanned the frontage road along with the interstate, with no connection.
As more bike paths are built, particularly on converted railroads, we are likely to see more situations where two bike routes cross without connecting. In my last post, I listed a number of such situations with the Hank Aaron State Trail. The HAST is an extreme case, both because it starts in a valley and then moves to a former railroad, but there are a number of similar cases in Milwaukee:
Just being in the right horizontal location may not be enough if one is too high or too low.
My first overnight bicycle tour went from Madison to Devil’s Lake State Park. It wasn’t a long ride- 45 miles one way, but it opened my eyes to the potential of the bicycle to explore distant places. Within a year I began riding the entire southern half of Wisconsin exploring bike routes for my first book “Bicycle Escape Routes.”
Devils’ Lake State Park turns 100 this year, and it has a number of celebrations planned for the summer, including Old Fashioned Day on July 23 and an ice cream social and string band on August 28. Click the link above for more information about the park and activities in the area.
You can ride your bike in and around the park, but if you want to get a taste for bicycle touring and have a great destination, try the Devil’s Lake Download from Bikeverywhere. The download includes great back roads from Middleton (a western suburb of Madison) to the free Merrimac Ferry across Lake Wisconsin. The ferry ride takes 7 minutes to cross and bikes get on right away. From there you take a couple of more scenic back roads that pass through rolling hills and marshlands to the park entrance.
Don’t be fooled by the road into the park. Because of the talus slopes along the road, it appears to be flat or even slightly downhill, but you’ll be working hard because the road actually climbs at a decent grade.
If you have the time and energy, continue north to Baraboo, home of Circus World Museum. The route is included in the download.
Mississippi Market, the food coop on W. 7th st in St. Paul, has always supported bicycling, but they seem to have taken that support to an extra level recently. This photo shows a public workstand, complete with tools and a floor pump for inflating tires. It’s not a bike shop mechanic’s stand, but for the DYI commuter bicyclistwho needs air in the tires or a quick tune-up, it’s a perfect set up. Obviously someone at Mississippi Market understands the needs of bicyclists beyond bike racks and lanes.
Mississippi Market has carried the Twin Cities Bike Map for years along with other guides to aid bicyclists. Thanks Mississippi Market.
This from the Bakken Museum:
Celebrate pedal power! The Bakken Museum is partnering with Bike Walk Twin Cities (BWTC) to improve the health and safety of our communities by decreasing driving. This summer, ride your bike to The Bakken Museum and receive one free admission with one paid admission.
To redeem one free admission with one paid admission, park your bike outside, and check in at the museum’s Visitor Service desk inside. This offer is valid June 1, 2011-September 30, 2011, and may not be used in conjunction with any other offers or discounts. Limit 4 free admissions with 4 paid admissions per group, per visit.
The Cedar Lake Trail connector to the Mississippi River has been open for several weeks, but tomorrow it becomes official with all the ribbon cutting and official proclamations. If this sort of thing interests you, the details are below. The trail is an important link that has been long overdue. With this link, it is now possible to slip under the Twin Stadium, past the warehouse district and into town using a number of access points, thus avoiding much of downtown traffic and the bizarre system of bike lanes through downtown.
The final phase of the Cedar Lake Trail is now complete! Come to a grand opening (pdf) on Tuesday, June 14th at 5 pm on West River Parkway near the Cedar Lake Trail access point (just north of the Hennepin Bridge)
To co-workers and friends I billed it as an “Extreme Leisure” bike tour. It was an intentional spoof and antidote to the extreme rides some had taken recently, like the Arrowhead ride; 138 miles of snowmobile trails in the dead of winter, or the Continental Divide Race; from Canada to Mexico on jeep tracks and mountain bike trails at a pace of 120 miles per day. My plan: 50 miles per day, lots of lounging, photos, talking with the locals.
In reality, it was a little tougher, with one 88 mile day and several days of 60 plus miles. I also rode through temperatures over 90 degrees, with high humidity and one day that started in the 40s, with 20 mph winds. Today, my last day, looks to be in the low 50s with a light drizzle.
I wandered off the planned route several times just because the road ahead looked better than the one I was on. I also spent several mid-days laying on picnic tables in the shade whle waiting for the most intense heat and sunlight of the day to pass. Met a Mennonite family and talked with them as I was buying asparagus directly from their garden and spent an hour in a bar, drinking a beer and eating pork rib sandwiches as my phone charged in an outlet. Spent one night in a campsite next to a gurgling, boulder-filled river and a couple of nights in a state park with warm showers. Those are the experiences that make a bike trip for me. Mega miles and extreme conditions test your limits and provide their own kind of experience, but they don’t work for me.
I finish this afternoon. Total miles will be approximately 370. My only regret is that the trip wasn’t longer. It takes several days just to settle into the routine, and my trip was broken up with a visit to family- enjoyable, but it diisrupted the flow I was developing. I’m hungry for another tour.
My apologies to anyone who didn’t get their orders fulfilled immediately while I was on vacation. I made the best arrangements I could think of, but some things fell through the cracks.
I leave Saturday for a bike tour across the state of Wisconsin. I’ll ride from the Twin Cities to Green Bay, approximately 325 miles. The tour will be self contained, about a week in length and the first significant bike tour I’ve taken in over 20 years.
My original plan was to ride the Mountain Bay Trail from Wausau, Wisconsin to Green Bay, but that changed a couple of weeks ago when I had the chance to test ride the eastern end of the trail. The ride began at the end of an all day rain. The first thirty miles were on paved road, then I jumped on the trail. It took only a couple of meters for me to realize that my speed on the trail would be permanently reduced from about 16 mph to 11 mph, and even that reduced speed required a substantial increase in effort. The trail in this area, near Shawano, looks and feels like a jeep trail with two narrow tracks, soft wet gravel and occasional puddles. I turned off at the first cross road that went in the direction I was heading.
Wisconsin has an extensive network of paved back roads, some of them with as little as 50 cars per day, or one every half hour. Central Wisconsin was flattened 10,000 years ago by glaciers, so the road system is pretty much in a grid. With a resource like that, all I had to do to get to my destination was ride generally northwest by going first north, then west and making my turns almost at random until I neared my destination. For me this is the essence of bicycle touring- to get from Point A to Point B, but not necessarily in a straight line. I look forward to a week of similar meanderings.