Great Lakes - MPLS/St. Paul Thread

We don't quite fit in the Great Lakes Thread, but we need one! I suggest we start a Minneapolis/St. Paul Thread and post useful information and updates on commuting, road riding and bike events in the twin towns here. Here's a preliminary offering:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/bicycles/bikemap-sharedlanes.pdf

It's a bike map of the Twin Cities area to help you plan your Bike-to-Work routes. HereNT, Castiron and others, please join in!!!

- Joe

Mods - Please feel free to move this where wver you think it would be best!

Ok. I'm here. The map they sell at local shops is the beans, though. Joe you make it out to that circus called the Ironnman (http://www.ironmanbikeride.org/) last sunday?

Ok. I'm here. The map they sell at local shops is the beans, though. Joe you make it out to that circus called the Ironnman (http://www.ironmanbikeride.org/) last sunday?
I did, made it my first century. It was a lot of fun. They claim there were 5200 riders this year. There were always a few dozen in sight. A few unicycles too.

I did not - we were out of town (Hilton Head Island) so I missed it. I am also not much of a joiner, although I plan to do a group ride sooner or later. If fact, I want to try a Century this summer, but I am no where near ready yet. I need to get a lot more base miles in. I am commuting again so that will help but I need time. Work has been brutal. I am hoping things settle out some after the end of May. Another goal for the summer is more vacation riding. My wife likes B&B's so we are planning a few trips with an overnight somewhere out state where she drops me off and I ride a trail and then meet up with her at the place we are going to stay. We did this on the Gandy Dancer trail last year but I found that trail to be pretty dull, so I am hoping some of the others might be more interesting. A co-worker recommended trying the Munger trail, so I might give that a shot next weekend or the weekend after.

Don't know much about the trails. Try to avoid them unless the missus is riding (rare indeed). FWIW the TCBC (http://www.biketcbc.org/) folks welcome guest riders for a $2 day fee. You can socialize or not, many don't. Otherwise, you can look into the racing action at MCF (http://mcf.net/index.php). I'll probably be at Blackdog on Sunday.