In 2008 the pedestrian bridge connecting Bryant Ave on the north and south sides of Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis was closed for safety reasons. The bridge is now open. A quick survey shows that it has a new wooden deck, new approaches to the bridge from both sides and a new paint job. According to a press release by the Minneapolis Park and Rec Board, structural changes also included reinforcement of the bridge superstructure and enlargement of the concrete piers.

According to reports from neighbors just before the bridge was closed, kids would stand in the middle of the bridge and rock it back and forth for entertainment. In the interest of bicyclist’s safety, I tried to rock the new bridge. It held firm.

Updates to the Twin Cities Bike Map will once again include the bridge as part of bike route options in south Minneapolis.

I will be presenting a new program at the Outdoor Adventure Expo on Friday, April 15 at 4:00. The program will feature metro area trails plus a special segment on combining bikes and the North Star Commuter Rail.

The trails part of the presentation reflects the extensive research I did last year for the latest edition of the Twin Cities Bike Map. That research underscored how rich this area is in bike trails and other bicycle amenities. For Twin Cities residents, it means you don’t have to travel far to ride some great bike trails. For residents outside the metro area, I recommend considering a bicycle vacation in the cities.You will be surprised at just how enjoyable it can be.

Last fall Metro Transit asked me to explore bike route options around the North Star Commuter Rail stations. They see bicyclists as a potential source of “reverse commuters,” who can take the train out to the exurban areas between the metro area and St. Cloud. Metro transit has a brochure and free online pdf showing some of the options. I took it a step further and explored options to Lake Maria State Park, station to station options and scenic loops. We’re developing a downloadable map of the routes and hope to have it posted within the next couple of weeks. Friday’s presentation will give you a sneak preview of the options.

Midwest Mountaineering’s Outdoor Adventure Expo is free. The Expo offers over 100 free outdoor adventure presentations and over 70 exhibitors. Details at OutdoorAdventureExpo.com. I hope to see you there.

Twin Cities Bike Map 10th Edition

It took over a year of research, primarily by bike, and hundreds of hours of work in our new GIS software, but the results are worth every minute of effort.

Here are some highlights from the new Twin Cities Bike Map.

* Expanded urban detail: The 10th edition extends south to cover most of Bloomington and east to the river crossing between South St. Paul and Newport.
* All new research: New and expanded trails in Apple Valley, Shakopee, Rosemount, Eden Prairie, Maplewood, Woodbury, Cottage Grove and Hastings. New on road routes everywhere
* New design: Bike Trails, busy bike routes, the LRT and North Star Commuter Rail lines, background colors and more have been re-designed for a cleaner, more readable look.

What hasn’t changed is the attention to accuracy and detail, the tear and water resistant paper and the price.

The maps are on their way to bike dealers and book stores now. Stop by soon and ask to look at the new Twin Cities Bike Map. You can also buy the maps directly from Bikeverywhere.com.

This from the City of Minneapolis Bicycle Program:

Bicycling Update Subscribers,

Next Monday, October 25^th, a closure of the Hiawatha Trail between 24^th and 26^th Streets will begin.  The closure will continue for up to three weeks, and will facilitate water main work being done as part of Metro Transit’s new maintenance facility on the east side of the trail.

The suggested detour route follows Minnehaha Avenue (which has recently been striped with bicycle lanes) and 24^th Street.

Riding buddy Dave Olson and I had talked about it on and off through the summer: We’d take the North Star Commuter Rail from Minneapolis to the end of the line, then ride our bikes back, but life got in the way and summer slipped by, so when the email said that North Star was offering a free ride to the end for bikes and riders, we jumped on it.

The train: We rode to Target Field, wandered around a bit in confusion, then figured out that getting to the train platform required using an elevator, escalator or stairs. Not easy in road riding shoes. That problem will be solved when the Cedar Lake Trail extension is finished late this fall. Bicyclists will be able to go directly from the trail onto the platform. Quite nice, except that North Star doesn’t sell tickets on the platform. They’re sold one flight up- via elevator, escalator or stairs.

Each car has storage for two bike, at one door of the car, but securing the bike is clumsy. It requires holding the bike upright while kneeling to floor level to strap the rear wheel to the stand. LRT has a much better system. The cars themselves are quite nice with commuter enhancements like 110v electrical outlets for plugging in a laptop to get some work done during the commute. They also have second floor seating for a nice view of the city and countryside during the ride.

Train platforms lack bathroom facilities. Plan ahead, especially if you are over 50.

The bike ride: We received maps for the ride back. The suggested route more or less followed the Mississippi River and the rail line back to town, but the map itself was remarkably free of useful information. At one point, for example, the route turned off Hwy 14 onto Hwy 30, then weaved through a number of streets until it arrived in Elk River. We saw Hwy 30, but it wasn’t on the map, anywhere, so we rode on and spent the next hour negotiating our way to Elk River through a combination of aiming in the right direction (the sun was out, that helped), asking directions (novel for male travelers), and trusting our gut instincts. It worked, and we managed to hook up with the main group at a park in the center of town. The route we found was actually quite a nice alternative and could easily be incorporated into a loop ride or alternate route back to town.

Although it was novel to ride back to the city from the end of the line, I think the real benefit of  commuter rail for bicyclists will be the opportunity to get off the train at one of the remote stations to spend a few hours riding country roads before hopping back on the train for the return trip. Train fare is under $8 each way, so for the price of a couple of movie tickets you could spend a pleasant afternoon riding the train and bicycling through farm fields and woodlots.

Rosemount is at the outskirts of the developed metro area. It’s a developing city with some amenities for bicyclists and a nearby oasis at Umore Park, the agricultural and research grounds of the University of Minnesota. Plans for Umore include a sustainable community of 20,000 to 30,000 people, but for now it’s a quiet throwback with unusual structures from its short life as the Gopher Ordnance Works and buildings dating from post World War II.

Paved roads at Umore are the smaller part of the network of routes through the grounds. Those are the routes highlighted for bicycling in the Twin Cities Bike Map, but a rider with wide road tires or a mountain bike has many more options for exploring this flat expanse of agricultural land.

Rosemount has put some effort into building a network of bike trails and roads with wide shoulders. The primary route loops through some smallish parks and around housing developments. There are no major destination spots along the trail, and signage is non-existent, but the trails are pleasant and young enough to still be in good condition.

Apple Valley is an old suburb designed during the the era when cul de sacs and large feeder roads to distant malls was considered the ultimate in suburban living. Bicycling was an afterthought and, for the most part, still is. There are plenty of bike paths in this sprawling city, but most run in the right-of-way of heavily traveled, noisy thoroughfares like Pilot Knob Road and Lexington Ave. The trails, built 15 to 20 years ago, are showing their age.  A spiderweb of weed-filled cracks run the entire length of some of the trails.

During one brief flurry of building activity Apple Valley developed a suburban style “downtown” with plantings, colored pavers and other amenities designed to create a central gathering spot for city residents. The effect is more pleasant than a typical mall, but the auto is still king and getting to “Downtown” by bike is a chancy endeavor for all except the most experienced and traffic savvy riders.

That said, the city is negotiable by bike. By combining indirect residential streets and the trails mentioned above, you can get close to almost any part of the city. I saw a surprising number of riders during a mid-August weekend. Most were riding the weedy trails mentioned above. Apple Valley has a few short trails running through parks, but they are mostly access trails and not worth seeking out for a recreational ride.

For me, part of bike route research is following instincts and researching dead end roads. I’ve frequently found connecting bike trails and useful additions to the map in unexpected places. The Pine Bend Cemetery is one of those surprises. It won’t add anything to the Twin Cities Bike Map, but it is a fascinating find.

I found it by following a suggestion from Dave Olson, my most trusted bike route adviser in the Twin Cities. He was the first to tell me about the new bike trail along Concord Blvd in S. St. Paul and the potential for a connector via the frontage road heading south along Hwy 55. The connector works well, providing a quick exit from Downtown St. Paul towards the Three Rivers Refinery and points to the SE.  My hope, however, was to get all the way to Spring Lake Regional Park and eventually to Hastings, so I slipped past a “Road Closed” sign just to see what was further south.

The road ended at Pine Bend Cemetery, an oasis of tall trees, ankle high grass and the thin white  tombstones that date cemeteries to the 1850s and 1860s.  The white limestone or marble was used extensively in the 1850s because it was easy to carve, but rain slowly dissolves the rock. Later tombstones were made from more durable granite.

Pine Bend Cemetery is about half the size of a football field and only half of the grounds have tombstones and a semi-maintained look. It is fairly typical for old, rural towns, but Pine Bend has been absorbed by the city. Hwy 55 makes a very noisy, and close, neighbor and the refinery looms large across the highway.

That juxtaposition, of a rural cemetery and the noisy trappings of modern society, pulled me back to the cemetery a couple of days later to take photos and wander the grounds.

Had I been able to just look toward the back of the cemetery and block out the traffic noise, I would have lingered longer, but the noise from the highway and the smell of the refinery drove me away. I moved on, but in my mind I still carry that rural cemetery image of a quiet, shaded oasis.

This is from the Bicycle Update subscribers email:

Bicycle detours are currently in place on the Hiawatha LRT Trail under I-94 and the Camden Bridge over the Mississippi River. The Hiawatha LRT Trail detour is intermittent, and is anticipated to take place on July 20th and 21st, as well as July 26th to 30th. A detour route will be signed. The Camden Bridge over the Mississippi River detour is in place throughout the summer. The detour is signed and available online (pdf). For further details on those and other bicycle detours in Minneapolis, visit our detours website.

One more detour: The Cedar Lake Bike Trail will be extended beyond the Twins Stadium and to the Mississippi River this fall. Estimated completion date is in November. The trail may be closed at the downtown end while construction crews build the connector between the existing trail and the new extension.

Old Bike Trail Acess I-94

The reconstruction of I-94 between Minnesota and Wisconsin several years ago created a new alignment for the bike path over the St. Croix River. The new path crosses the river on the south bridge of I-94 instead of the north bridge. As a result, the access trail from the north side has been closed. Vegetation is slowly encroaching on the trail.

The change has made Rivercrest Rd and 21st St from the north unnecessary. They will not be designated as bike routes in the 2011 update of the Twin Cities Bike Map.

Other changes: 24th St N, from the NE corner of Tartan Park in Lake Elmo, now connects the two broken segments of 20th St between Tartan Park and Neal Ave. The road provides a more direct connection to Neal Ave and points north.

Woodbury: More trails and new alignments. Woodbury’s trail system is quite extensive, but utterly confusing because it has no trail signage.