Scenes from Last Night's Ride

Last night was one of those picture perfect nights.  The temperatures were in the 60s and it was bright and sunny.  I know that nights like this are numbered so I decided to make the most of it and went for a bike ride while Phil played softball. 

I left without a real plan for how far I'd bike or where I'd go and let myself just decide as I went along.  Luckily I am super familiar with the trail system in Minneapolis after logging hundred of miles running along the paths so I had plenty of options.  Here are some pictures of what I saw!

Heading out along the Mississippi, which was smooth as glass!

After winding around a couple of lakes, I headed back into downtown.  I love the prairie grass that grows along this trail!

My favorite view of the Minneapolis skyline!  It was even more beautiful in person!

Biking makes me happy

The view of St. Anthony Falls at the end of my ride.  I feel so lucky to call this neighborhood home.

A little over an hour later, I had covered about 14.5 miles and felt calm and refreshed.  Like I said in my post on Monday, running will always be my first love, but biking is going to become a close second.  So far one thing I like about biking is that I have zero expectations besides having fun and enjoying the sights.  I wear my garmin so I can track how far I've gone, but the pace of each mile means nothing to me whereas when I run, each mile split will elicit a feeling of pride or disappointment, even on casual runs. 

Maybe with time I will form expectations for biking, but I hope that is not the case.  I put a lot of pressure (too much pressure, some might argue) on myself in many/most other aspects of my life, so I am really hoping that biking will be something that can just be plain fun.

Funday-Sunday on a Bike

As I said at the end of my post yesterday, I capped off my Sunday with a nice long bike ride.  I have a nice ride membership, which is the bike share program in Minneapolis and they changed the program so that people with a membership can use the bikes for 60 minutes at a time before checking the bike into a docking station (daily users can use them for a max of 30 minutes).  This is a nice change as it allows me to take longer bike ride without worrying about not being able to find a docking station in time.

My GPS wasn't cooperating with me on this ride, so I am not sure how far I biked, but I am going to guesstimate that I biked about 10 miles, maybe more.  The mileage doesn't matter, what matters is that I had fun and got some fresh air!  Here are some of the sights I saw on this bike ride!

I started off by biking to the chain of lakes.  I have logged countless miles around these lake so know them like the back of my hand.  I love that you get peaks of the skyline at various points around the lakes!  This picture was taken by Lake of the Isles.  

After biking around the lake, I headed back towards downtown Minneapolis and biked through the sculpture garden where you'll find this famous cherry-on-the-spoon sculpture!

After that I biked through downtown Minneapolis and over to my neighborhood.  There are a lot of beautiful areas in Minneapolis but my neighborhood is my favorite.  I just think the St. Anthony Falls are so pretty!

My head is blocking it, but my condo is located to the left of the tallest building in this photo.

I biked across the river to an area called St. Anthony Main which is a really cute area with restaurants.  It also features beautiful views of the downtown skyline!

I had biked for about 80 minutes so I figured I earned some gelato!  I ate my salted caramel and vanilla gelato on a park bench with a view of the city.  The gelato and the view were fabulous.

Running has always been my first love but I have to say that biking has become a close second.  I am strongly considering getting a road bike as that would allow me to log more miles.  The nice ride bikes are super convenient but since they are cruiser style bikes, they are super heavy so it's pretty taxing to do long rides on them.  I have some bike research to do, but I just might be purchasing one this summer (and I am hoping I can talk Phil into buying one too so we can go on some biking dates!).

In the mean time, I'll be getting a lot of mileage out of these nice ride bikes.  And when I renewed my membership they sent me some day pass vouchers so I will be able to use those when/if I have visitors!

Do you enjoy biking?  Is your city bike friendly?  Minneapolis is usually neck-in-neck with Portland for being the most bike friendly city in the U.S.  We have lots of bike paths/greenways and many of our roads in the city have bike lanes so I feel pretty safe biking around. 

Nice Ride!

Remember when I first told you about the Minnesota Nice Ride program last summer? Well, I hit the 1 year mark for my subscription late in the month of July.  I thought it would be fun to look back on my statistics!

As you can see, I used the bikes 321 times, biked ~171 miles, and saved 5 gallons of gas (I think that might be understated as city driving is so not fuel efficient)!  I am pretty happy with those stats.  I have used those bikes SO many times and can't imagine living downtown and not having access to them.  I've used the bikes to get to work, the grocery store, target, church, and happy hour among other destinations.

I've perfected the art of shopping on my bike after learning some lessons along the way - like the day I carried all of this home while biking...

A back pack, purse, envirosack of farmer's market goods, and a bouquet of flowers is TOO much to carry on a bike!!

Suffice it to say it was a wobbly, sweaty ride home and I was tempted to ditch the flowers.

Up until last summer, I hadn't biked for years upon years, so it has been fun to rediscover my love of biking.  I'm still thinking of buying a road bike so I can go on longer rides on the weekends and bike to/from run club (driving to run club is the only time I drive most weeks!) but haven't taken the plunge yet as I have been too busy with marathon training to really think about researching/buying a bike!  I do think I will buy one eventually!

Does your city have a bike sharing program?  If so, have you used it?  It's been so popular in Minneapolis and there has been such a low level of vandalism, they no longer authorize a day user's card for a damage deposit and instead they just get charged for their usage.  I have an annual membership so just pay once a year and plan to continue to renew my membership each year as long as I live downtown!

10 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 2

Today I am giving thanks for the nice ride bikes that I utilized all summer!

I wrote about a post about our commuter bike program earlier this year when I first purchased my annual membership.  I loved it from the get go and got so much use out of it.  I totally fell head-over-heels in love with biking.  I biked to work.  I biked to the grocery store.  I biked to church.  I biked to meet friends out at a bar downtown.  I bike home from happy hour.  I biked home from a night out on the town (that was probably my most interesting ride home...). 

Sadly, they put the bikes away this past weekend in preparation for our winter.  I was sad to see them go as it was a quick and easy way to cover distance.  It most certainly contributed to how little I drove this summer in fall.  In fact - I went from September 16th until October 30th without getting gas!!!  Isn't that incredible?  During that time, I was traveling quite a bit, so that is part of the reason why I wasn't driving much, but on top of that, I biked everywhere. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I drove to get groceries.  I am really proud of myself for embracing the European way of life and relying on a bike and my feet to get me everywhere!

Without further ado, here are my stats from late July - November 6th!

 I am really happy with my stats!  Plus, I still have 4 months left on my membership - so those numbers will only continue to climb. 

I look forward to the day in April when the bikes return.  I will greatly miss biking to work.  I always felt so chic and sort of French when I would to work in dresses or skirts or when I biked to work in skinny jeans + boots with my striped messenger bag that was made in France!  Oh la la, how I loved biking everywhere!

Nice Ride!

That post title is not in reference to the car I drive.  It's the name of the Minneapolis Commuter Biking Program - which I have fallen in LOVE with!

Bike station located behind my condo!

 For those not familiar with this program, here is how it works.  It's meant for commuters (specifically trips that take less than 30 minutes).  You buy a membership (daily, monthly, or annually) and you then have unlimited access to stations all across Minneapolis!  When you have a month or annual membership, you insert a little key and release a bike and you then can use that bike for 30 minutes, free of charge, as long as you return it to a different station within 30 minutes. 

If you don't return it within 30 minutes, you start to get charged.  It's pretty minimal for the first 1.5 hours, but after that it adds up pretty quick.  But there is no reason to accrue charges as there are bike stations all over the place so it's very simple to find another one!  Also, there is an iPhone ap that shows me the closest stations, tells me how many bikes are available, and tells me how many docking stations are available!

It's genius, really.  I have used this SO much. 

I've biked to get groceries.
I have biked home from work.
I have biked to meet my brother for lunch.
I have biked home from happy hour (sober, of course!).

I hadn't rode a bike in AGES, so it has been fun to rediscover my love of biking.  I told Amber that I feel like a little kid again! 

I purchased an annual membership and my plan is to see how much I use it and then possibly buy a bike next summer.  Maybe.  We will see.  The thing I like about this program is that you don't have to worry about locking your bike or getting it stolen or maintenance.

As soon as I started utilitizing this program, Amber gently prodded me made me get a helmet.  I feel less cute in one, but oh well!  I am riding in traffic, so safely comes first! 

Also, now that I have my membership activated, it will track information such as how far I have gone and how much gas I am saving by biking.  I just got my membership recently, so my stats are low, but I imagine they will be high by the time fall rolls around!  I will probably share my total when the program wraps up in October.   Here are my stats thus far!

Pretty cool, huh? 

This commuting bike moment is sweeping the nation!  I believe it originated in France as I remember Paris has a velib system when I was there in 2008.  I am thrilled that Minneapolis has this program available.  It most definitely cuts down on the amount of driving I do!

Do you like to bike?  Does your city have a program like this?