Strange as it may seem, I think the frigid winters are part of the reason cycling has taken off here. There's a long history of trying to make living in this often inhospitable climate as pleasant as possible. Through foresight, back room dealings, generosity, and luck that go back to the 1800s, the city managed to dedicate large areas of land to green space. Over 16% of Minneapolis is parkland. By design no resident is ever farther than 6 blocks from a park. Moreover the most popular parks are interconnected by, you guessed it, - bike and pedestrian trails. The bike trails around the popular lakes area have existed for over 40 years. They can be seen in the opening credits from the Mary Tyler Moore show. There were also bike trails there at the turn of the (previous) century but they were later replaced with bridle paths. Damn horses.

And... if you've ever been to downtown Minneapolis you may have noticed all the enclosed bridges (skyways) over the streets that connect the buildings. This is so we can get around downtown in January without freezing our asses off.

So between the park trails and the skyways there's a tradition of building non-auto related transportation infrastructure.

The star-tribune seems to print some cycling related article every month or so. What I'd like to see (and maybe they've done it) is an article about all the jobs that the local cycling culture has created in the area. QBP is a monster in the cycling parts industry and they also have several niche brands. With all the budget constraints at various government levels, more cycling infrastructure is going to be an increasingly difficult thing to justify. It might be easier if the economic benefits of being a cycling boomtown were better publicized.