Thanks Nice Ride!

This summer Nice Ride Minnesota came to St. Paul with its unmistakeable green Nice Ride bikes. Better yet they put a station right in front of the Department of Natural Resources building where I work. After passing the station daily as I walked from the bus, I finally got to use it today.

Mission: Meet a friend/colleague in Minneapolis for Happy Hour
Trip challenge: get some work done to compensate for my early departure

Leg 1: Work to Town Hall Brewery
3:00 pm Walk from 6th floor office to Nice Ride station at Lafayette and Grove

3:04 pm Depart Nice Ride station

   --Enjoy bike ride--

3:11 pm Arrive at 10th and Robert Nice Ride station

   --walk one block (and start this blog)--

3:23 pm Catch 94B Express Bus

   --work on bus (editing report) while the bus passed much traffic--

3:53 pm  Arrive at Metrodome Mpls Nice Ride Station

   --Enjoy bike ride (Washington Ave. wasn't too bad)--

4:00 pm arrive Town Hall Brewery

Leg 1 Summary:
Total time: 1 hour
     Travel time: 50 minutes (30 mins bus, 14 mins bike, 6 mins walking)
          includes 25 minutes of productive work on the bus
     Waiting time: 10 minutes  (I started this blog!)

Leg 2: Town Hall Brewery to Home
5:33 pm Head home on Nice Ride bike

5:51 pm Arrive at neighborhood Nice Ride station (about a 2 mile ride)

5:59 pm Walk 6 blocks to home, for the first time a little sweaty. Ready to change into shorts and a t-shirt.

Before Nice Ride this journey likely would have taken me 50%+ longer due to less than ideal bus connections.  Here's to the fantastic bike-walk options that Nice Ride has brought to the Twin Cities.  Here's to Bike-Walk Twin Cities and their many partners for the great improvements they have brought to bike-walk infrastructure.  Here's to many, many more who are making the Twin Cities an even better place to get around without a car.   

Dashing Through the Snow along the Mississippi

The Twin Cities' weather this past week has been a bicyclist's delight.  The bike lanes were mostly clear of snow and ice and morning and afternoon commute temps were in the delightful twenty degree zone.  Many of us pulled out our summer bikes to revel in the conditions.  My five year old even rode his bike from a friend's house back home. It seemed like a stolen moment that many of us made the best of.  I bike commuted more this week than in months.

Snow did come on Thursday afternoon, so I was back on my winter bike with its studded tires.  Another 1/2-3/4 inch layer of snow came Friday, perfect for beautifying the bike trail while not impeding progress.  After a quiet day at work on December 23rd, I was psyched to take my 12 mile Mississippi River route into the Christmas Holiday.  Here are some photos I snapped along the way.

 

Beautiful pre-sunset light over the Mississippi River in Saint Paul. 

I didn't pass any bikes the whole way home last week nor this week. But 6 others had passed since the snow fell hours ago. 

This route is great for wildlife sightings.  Here is one of the several white-tailed deer I saw.  The best sighting this fall was a red-bellied snake crossing the path.  It was caught in the cool weather.. and very cold as discovered when I picked it up to move it off the trail. 

I love the quiet on this route.  It was magically broken as I was cruising up the old railroad grade and heard this train approaching from behind.  The Polar Express?

Back in our neighborhood I made a point of biking by our local Christmas light hotspot.  This week's commutes have also been a great chance to enjoy the beauty of some great Holiday light displays along my usual route home on Summitt Ave.

Here's to another great year of experiencing the seasons along this great Mississippi River route home. 

Car-free by the Numbers

What do we mean by "car-free"?  No, we have not completely sworn off cars.  We simply don't own one.  Our car-free (or car-lite) life includes many modes of travel.  For about a year and a half in 2009-2010 I dutifully recorded every one of our trips away from the house to see how much we used each of the many modes of travel.  I call it the Riding Phrius Data Project.  It is a pretty cool dataset.  Like many cool datasets, it has yet to be fully explored.

Below is a sneak preview into how many miles we traveled by bus/light rail, bike, rental car, visitor's rental cars, etc. for the 9 months from March - December 2009.  It does not include air travel, the Achilles heal of most people's carbon footprint.  In this 9 months we traveled a total of 7176 miles, 58% of which were divided equally between public transportation and bicycle.  I look forward to sharing some more gems from the Riding Phrius Data Project. 

Pizza on a bike

School day and everyone was headed home late.  I was commuting home from St. Paul.  I got the call from Hillary who was headed home in the Roo trike with T and H after T's tennis lesson.  "How 'bout we order a pizza," she proposed.  "How 'bout I get a bake-at-home pizza at Papa Murphys," I replied.  I turned around and headed there.  I got the pizza and wondered how I was going to get it home without it turning into a plastic-wrapped wad of pizza sauce, toppings, and dough.

With a little ingenuity it is amazing what you can strap to a bike.  After scratching my head for a moment, I slipped one end of the pizza box into my left pannier rain cover and snagged one box corner with the handle of the right pannier.  I wrapped the left pannier's strap over the left side of the box.  But how to tension that strap?  Ah, the side benefits of a cable lock.  I unwrapped enough of my cable lock and slipped it through the strap, relocked and voila - the pizza was level and well secured without any added strapping.  Little did the pannier company, Jandd, know that their rain cover can double as a pizza delivery sleeve!

Bike Walk to Work Day 2011: DNR bike commuters unite!

A high point of Bike Walk Week is Bike Walk to Work Day.  Not only are there great restaurants and cafes offering complimentary goodies to bike commuters, but there is the chance to recognize the impressive community of bike commuters in the Twin Cities. 

But this year was even better because a coworker at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources organized a bunch of us to meet at the  Downtown Saint Paul Bike Walk to Work Day event in Rice Park.  Here is the crew.  Thanks to Kelly for bringing us together.  It was great fun to meet up and then ride as a small pack through downtown St. Paul to DNR.

Every day is different, but no fish this time

I always enjoy meeting other bike commuters along my route, especially when they are recent converts to the joys of bike commuting.  Today, I met one such person at the work bike lockers.  We were both looking at the cloudy skies and wondering if we'd get caught in a passing shower.  I commented that I hadn't checked the weather but that I had checked the Mississippi River levels  online.  I wanted to get an indication of how passable my river route home through Lilydale would be.  She then commented how much she loved bike commuting and was doing it more and more.  She noted how "every day of bike commuting is different."  So true, and my commute through Lilydale today confirmed it.

I reached the  Lilydale section of my river ride home. Good sign: the road gate was open.  The surface of the Mississippi River was rushing just below the road's level, but enough time had passed that the many inches of river sediment had been plowed from the once flooded bike path. Reassured and optimistic, I took the bike path through the floodplain forest.  Soon I reached a flooded section of trail.  Hmm...I had encountered a flooded section last year (see below) and successfully biked through with dry feet. But this was a different section and a very different flood year.

The water flooding the path was irresistible, so still, reflecting the tree canopy above.  Its surface was speckled with tufts of cottonwood seeds.  Thinking of last year's successful fording of the water, I plunged in with two wheels. The water rose as the bike descended... 1 inch, 3 inches, 6 inches, feet wet as they churned through the water.  Don't slow...9 inches, 11 inches, my panniers are now cutting through the water.  Luckily it got no deeper and I  stayed upright.  I reached dry ground, feet dripping. I emptied the water from my panniers, finding no fish.  I dried off the bottom edge of the iPad that had suffered the crossing and headed to the next crossing.

Yes, every day of bike commuting is different.

Ride Magic - My River Commute in 3 minutes of Video

There are some bike rides that you live for. There is one I live for every week, especially when it is a gorgeous Friday afternoon after a long week at work. After a week of riding (or busing) the direct 8.5 mile route from my home to work near downtown St. Paul, I crave the 15 mile route back home along the Mississippi River. It is the perfect way to decompress after a work week and bring in the weekend. Two weeks ago I shot some video and added Tom Paxton's "Ride my Bike" as the sound track. I hope you enjoy it!

The first 12 miles of my river route in video:

My river ride in words:
From the rush of cruising through downtown St. Paul and its mini-rush hour,
To the beginning of quiet as I pass through Harriet Island,
I pass under St. Paul's High Bridge,
Through the Mississippi River floodplain forest.
River sediment, once deep, now laces the trail,
Leading to a surprise - residual floodwater.
I wind through the cottonwoods of Lilydale and,
Gently climb back in time as I ascend the side of the river gorge.
I tunnel to emerge at the cacophony of Mendota Bridge traffic,
Passing over the center of the earth and under the center of the heavens,
And pausing for deer at Fort Snelling, I make a quick descent.
Whoa, the bloodroot is blooming, and Dutchman's breeches too,
Lingering for Minnehaha Falls Park scenes,
I wish I could have stopped for a beer and dinner at Sea Salt.
Thanks to my bike, the "Italian Stallion".




















A view down the Mississippi River with downtown St. Paul in the background. This is very near the Mississippi's confluence with the Minnesota River. I take this photo about a dozen times each year in an attempt to capture the changing seasons along the River. This one is from last October.

Day 10 of #30daysofbiking (ala Dutchman's Breeches)

My favorite way to end the work week is to take the long bike route home from downtown St. Paul along the Mississippi River to Minneapolis. It is a 15 mile route full of great scenery and dedicated bike trail. I had a great time trying to capture a video description of this route yesterday (which was actually day 9 of #30daysofbiking), but I am still editing it down to a reasonable length such that somebody other than my mother-in-law would watch it.
Until I get the video up, here is one image of the wonderful spring ephemeral wildflower, Dutchman's Breeches, that bloom each early spring along one particular spot of the trail. What a treat it is to see them!