April 7

How would you pick someone up from the notorious Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, where bikes are forbidden to ride? Fortunately, the light rail connection links to the Minnehaha Creek bike path. I rode a pair of Anuras over to meet Dale as he flew home from New York. My Droid showed me (via FlightAware) which of the planes that I saw landing was his, and Google Latitude confirmed it when he turned on his phone and his avatar showed up on the map. (I have a terrible weakness for consumer electronics on bikes.)  We arrived at the light rail station almost simultaneously. There was room in the trailer, so we stopped for groceries on the ride home. The cars spent another day in the driveway as we enjoyed the first spring day with temperatures over 60 degrees and crocuses in bloom next to warm foundations. 

There is another way to bike to the MSP airport.  Of the two terminals, Terminal 2 has bike access, and the light rail connection between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 serves as a free shuttle that allows bikes.  It's less convenient and less pleasant than the connection at the Minnehaha Creek, so we generally go for the scenic route.

April 6

Just one stoplight on my commuting route.  I got there before seven, when pushing the button gets a quick response.  During rush hour the wait for a green light is interminable.  I've biked in the Netherlands and Denmark, where separate traffic signals for cyclists offer a "green wave" timed to bike speeds, or use detectors to change the light as the cyclist approaches.  This light is triggered by a loop detector that doesn't register for bikes at all;  you either wait for it to sense a car, or you push the button.

I enjoyed a quiet and beautiful ride home at sunset, under a crescent moon. 

From Thirty Days of Biking

April 5

Biking Instead. There are no windows to frost up on the bike

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April 4

Snow and a gusty headwind greeted me on the second commuting day of April. Warmer weekend temperatures had shrunk the snowbanks and cleared the last ice from the streets.

The northwest wind that blew sleet into my eyes in the morning gave me a nice boost on the way home.  I hardly needed to pedal. Riding on a two-wheeler allows me to ride around the potholes that are growing large enough to swallow a small car. 

From Thirty Days of Biking

April 3 evening ride

So much of our riding is for commuting or errands that it seemed odd to be out for just a little ride in the evening on April 3.  Without the "30 Days of Biking" challenge, we might not have set out for a ride under grey skies on a day when the snowbanks haven't completely melted away.  I rode the Anura trike with the 20" wheels and the studded tires, and Dale rode one of the other Anuras.  Like so many bike rides, this one had a little surprise:  the mergansers had found a small open patch of water on Lake Harriet and were doing their spring dances.  I've seen hawks on most of my recent rides, and this morning, I enjoyed watching an albino squirrel in a nearby park.  Seeing a white squirrel on a bike ride always feels lucky to me -- as if it might bring favorable weather for riding this month.

From Thirty Days of Biking

April 3

From Blogger Pictures

On the third day of "30 Days of Biking," I rode to the ATM to make a deposit.  The bike is a "CarryMe" from Pacific Cycles.  It handles remarkably like a normal bike, but it folds small enough to take along on a plane or carry into an office. 

April 2

We cycled out to do some shopping today on the second day of the "30 Days of Biking" 2011 challenge. The salesclerk wondered how we would get our 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of purchases home, and it did turn out to be a tight fit. We had to strap one bag of oranges to the back of a seat. Ice on the north-facing ramp from the parking lot would have stopped most bikes, but four-wheel drive on the Anura trike tandem got us through.

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Bike Every Day - 30 Days of Biking

There's a challenge to bike every day in April and tweet about it. I don't tweet, but I do bike, so here goes!

We were expecting freezing rain today, but the temperature stayed just a bit warmer. Mallard duck pairs were quacking happily from the rooftops. Chickadees were singing. A light drizzle barely moistened my hair and glasses.

Rainshield pants and jacket kept my clothes dry. (It breathes better than any other rain gear I've tried.)

Not a bad day to start a 30-day cycling challenge.

The bike is a long-wheelbase recumbent by Terry Osell (a Minneapolis builder).  Since I bought it in 1996, it's been modified with a new seat, new handlebars, and a new drivetrain with an 8-speed Shimano hub. 

From Blogger Pictures

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Last winter ride

Snow melting along the streets and re-freezing into slippery sheets, daylight saving time turning the ride dark again...

It may have been the last real winter ride, since temperatures are rising well above freezing and aren't expected to drop much during the nights.

This Anura trike has ordinary tires on 16" wheels;  it's fine for icy patches on level ground or gentle sloped.  The one with 20" wheels and studded tires was on an icier route that had some significant hills -- and doing very well there.

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Gearing up

From Blogger Pictures

Minneapolis plows many miles of bike paths, including the excellent Midtown Greenway, but as of March 5, there are still many icy patches, and riding a two-wheeler can be challenging.  Greenspeed's Anura trike comes with 16-inch wheels, for which there are no commercial sources of studded tires, so when we read about replacing the rear wheels with 20-inchers, we immediately realized that we could make a formidable ice bike that way. 

This is the Anura prototype trike that we bought in the spring of 2007.  A differential allows both rear wheels to be driven, which gives it extra traction on ice and snow.  Riding home from the bike shop where we had the wheels rebuilt, I deliberately took it up an icy hill and was able to make it to the top even though the path was actually too narrow, and the wheels were dragging against the snow on the sides. 

At least two more March snowstorms are looming out to the west, so we're expecting to have plenty of opportunities to test this little snow machine!