Sunday, November 23, 2008

Afternoon of one-speed wanderings...

The past couple days I've spent indoors, working, relaxing, and taking in the Banff Film Fest.  It was time to get outside before the work week interrupts again.  I called up Nate and we headed out for an urban singlespeed ride, as the local MORC-maintained mtb singletrack is going through a lot of freeze/thaw cycles and is too delicate to ride without tearing it up.  We started by rolling down the center boulevard of historic Summit Ave here in STP, which actually does have dirt singletrack, and it wasn't muddy at all.  From there we turned south, dropped down to the Mississippi River bottoms and rode the rocky shoreline, taking a breif stop to check out Hidden Falls, which wasn't falling enough for a picture, then ended up cruising the gravel roads of Fort Snelling State Park.  We ate, then took off for Minnehaha Falls on the way up the Minneapolis side of the river.  It was running slowly, and has started it's process of icing over for the long winter.  Paved bike path, (and some secret singletrack that was also dry enough) brought us back to Summit and then home.  Seeing as we made an awful lot of stops to try riding over obstacles we found with our 29 inch wheels, and took a lot of round about explorations of paths/singletrack/backroads along the way, and just generally gawked at the beautiful early winter day, we managed to spend four hours out.  So in other words, a good singlespeed ride with no where in particular to go and no real time constraints.  Yup.  

The KM and Minnehaha Falls...


















Mississippi River...














Secret Singletrack...don't bother looking for it, it's probably a whole .2 miles long.  :)














Surly and River.  Good afternoon.  









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