Spring lasts two days

I went for a bike ride on Easter Sunday from my home which is just West of Downtown St. Paul to Battle Creek Regional Park.  I rode on the bike trails along the river and it is a lovely ride.  If you like to walk, bike, run or roller blade as some folks were doing on Easter I highly recommend the river trails.  A small section of the trail is closed right under the lafayette  bridge but it isn’t hard to get through it. 

I made this map with the GPS in my phone:

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Bike Trail

Most of the trail is along the river and some of it goes through wooded areas by the river.  I saw some deer yesterday and almost always see wildlife along the path.   

Battle Creek park is a great place to hike in the woods and see wildflowers and birds. This is what the park will look like in early May.  

Battle Creek Regional Park

Biking season

 It is possible that it will stop snowing and will be warm enough to want to ride a bike some day.  I have had my bike out a couple of times but wearing all of those winter cloths, fighting a twenty mile an hour wind and freezing my legs off takes much of the joy out of it.

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My bike

We have an amazing bike trail system in the twin cities.  No one really knows how big it is because we don’t have any complete maps.  The trails go along the river and through the parks and around the lakes.  There are miles and miles of them and they are in great shape.  Did you know there are trails along 35e in St. Paul?  Some of the trails are county and others are city and some are state so we have five different government agencies and five sets of old and incomplete maps.  The last state map was made in 2001 and it is still considered to be the best. 

My favorite trails are the trails that run along the Mississippi River. They are part of the regional trail system . . I think.  Minneapolis has bike trails that go around the lakes and they call it the grand rounds but the web site has a drawing on it and not a map

My phone has a built in GPS and I think I found an easy way to record my route along the bike paths.  I am going to see if I can make maps of the St. Paul bike trails with my phone, my bike and Google maps. . . but not until it stops snowing . . July?