Adventures in Minneapolis

Posted by Andrew on July 5th, 2009 -   

The train from Chicago to Minneapolis was uneventful, and only about 30 minutes late. I spent the 8.5 hour ride napping, eating, watching WI and MN pass by from the lounge car, dodging old people wandering around the sleeper car in their PJs, and trying to block the 4 unruly kids seated behind me. Note to Amtrak: seat loud kids together, preferably in the baggage car, and leave the sleeper cars in the back of the train - those old folks are tough to get around when one has to walk through the sleeper cars to get to the lounge.

Traveling with my bike was fairly easy. Amtrak has enormous bike boxes for sale ($15 + $5 handling fee) at stations with checked baggage service. I read that most bikes fit into the box with the handlebars turned sideways, but that didn’t seem to work with my drop bars. I removed the handlebars and taped them to the bike, removed the pedals, then rolled the whole thing into the box. Wandering around Union Station with 4 bags, my handlebar bag, and a helmet (on my head of course) got a few odd looks.

Amtrak dragged my bike out shortly after we arrived in Minneapolis, and I set to work putting things back together and digging out my bike lights: small, very underpowered headlight, blinking taillight, glowing ankle reflector, and my random red blinker. I hit the road at 11:30 headed toward the airport via Adventure Cycling’s directions. The first few turns were all local roads, and I arrived at a bike path in about 20 minutes.

Way to go Minneapolis! The bike paths are great, in pretty good shape, and they appear to be useful for actually getting places. I’ve seen several bike lanes or bike paths so far that are clearly an afterthought - they aren’t actually useful for getting to a downtown area, to transit, or to some thing interesting. I thought, “wow, this is great, I’ll get to the hotel quickly, then I just have to convince them to let me check in early.”

So… I got completely lost on the bike paths. I ended up riding around for about 3 hours, down all sorts of bike paths, random suburban neighborhoods, in and around Fort Snelling State Park, and finally to the airport. After 1 flat tire, 1 chat with a police officer, who probably wondered why I was riding a loaded bike around the runway approach lights, several snacks, getting rejected at the McDonalds drive through, and a slightly frightening ride through a very dark state park (remember, underpowered headlight), I arrived at the Hilton. I don’t know what I looked like at 3:30 AM, but Dennis at the front desk figured 3:30 AM would be a good early check-in time. Thanks Dennis.

Fortunately it was a beautiful night for a ride. I found Minneapolis to be very rideable, but then again, my arrival ride was between the hours of 12 and 3 AM. I’ll ride around again today on my way back to the train station.  And this time I know where I’m going!

Amy and I had a great time in Minneapolis (pictures coming!). The Mall of America is scary, huge, and oddly amazing all at the same time.  Mall, art museum, baseball game, wandered around aimlessly, visited the Mill Museum (very cool), and watched the fireworks from no less than a dozen different towns from the hotel - we did plenty of exploring.

So, I’m headed back to the train station today after a series of errands this afternoon: food, having an overpriced local shop true my wheels, food, Internet, email, food, new bungee cords for my sleeping bag (I left them on your trunk Sarah, sorry), and locating some snacks for the train ride.  I’ll board at 11:15 PM, and wake up in Minot, ND at 8:30 AM, if Amtrak is on time.  I overheard someone on this route mention that Amtrak is often 1-2 hours late by the time they get to Seattle.

I’m still working on my route, and I’d love some input if anyone is familiar with North Dakota, Montana, Glacier NP, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.  So far, I know I’ll ride from Minot to Glacier National Park to head up the Going-to-the-Sun road, after that, who knows!

Comments are closed.