Today was the last day of the kids taking summer programming where I could do whatever I wanted. So of course, I went for a long bike ride. I was hoping the school they were at this week would get me close enough to try for a ride to Stillwater, but it wasn’t even really close and required way to much city riding. Instead I went for a route that I had done part of before. I rode North on the East side of the river crossing at 694 and then following the Mississippi River Trail to the Coon Rapids Dam. Part of it were industrial, some scenic suburbs, and some was just normal. The Coon Rapids Dam parking lot on the West side is getting redone so I had to be careful not to get lost for a second!

Then onto the Rush Creek trail heading West. This is an interesting trail because it goes through several different types of ecosystem. It had prairies, hardwood forest, and pine forests along its somewhat winding route. Paved and well-marked this is a nice flat ride. I think the only hill was crossing over US 169 – which is where I turned around. So close to Elm Creek but yet so far! I had to back track a little bit (I had planned for that) to the Douglas Road trail.

This paved trail ran parallel to Douglas Road and was a nice alternative to street riding, but in many ways was just a glorified sidewalk. No real signage at all. I couldn’t remember for sure which street I needed to turn right on, so I stopped at 85th Street to look at my phone and that was the road I needed. This was the only section of road riding on this part (the only other section was in Northeast and could probably been avoided by crossing the river). From 85th Street I turned onto Xerxes which was a paved trail that turned into a bike lane. Xerxes crosses the Shingle Creek Parkway which I took and headed East following the signs around Palmer Lake. You could tell that the water had recently been over some parts of the trail and there was a huge section of outfield at the ballparks that probably hadn’t been mowed all summer due to standing water. I’ve ridden here before and had to go through standing water. I was glad that wasn’t the case today. The Palmer Lake loop is a nice little loop, but Shingle Creek Parkway turns off of it and heads more south.

Shortly after leaving Palmer Lake, I did have to ride through some flooded trails. It was about the same depth and width as the Luce Line flooding is. My feet got wet! I was able to go around another section of flooding that was under a bridge (didn’t seem like a good risk). After that it was through Brooklyn Center and into Minneapolis. I crossed the tracks and took Webber Parkway into North Mississippi Regional Park and came back out on Washington Ave or 2nd Ave which I guess is more street riding, but it has bike lanes. These bike lanes are nice, but the area is still very industrial with lots of semis and such.

I caught back up with the river road trails and got to Plymouth Ave and still had time so I kept riding and ended up crossing at the Stone Arch bridge. Rode through a little bit of construction and ended up getting to the school with a couple of minutes to spare!

Total riding was 36.81 miles in 2:42.

I got a bunch of segment PR’s but I don’t really ride that way much so I’m not sure that they mean a whole lot! It was a great day to ride and a fun route.