Digest of r/CyclingMSP

I'm looking to buy a road bike for winter riding, and I want to know what is the minimum recommended studded tire width for riding in Minneapolis winters. I'm looking to run full fenders so I need to make sure I find a bike that can fit the fenders + studded tires.

I'd mostly ride on city streets and separated bike paths.

I currently run a 700x40 on my front and a 700x50 on my rear. Both are close to my max tire clearance. Should I switch to slightly smaller winter tires?

If you are looking for frame bags (top tube, full-frame, half-frame, etc) I highly recommend local company Yellow Cat industries. I’m through two seasons with a custom bolt-on top tube bag and a custom half-frame bag and they have been PERFECT. Great zippers. Awesome colors. Great company.

Decided to bike from NE Mpls to my grandmother’s 86th on my old Trek 700 with a bunch of food from Holy Land. Biked out Wednesday afternoon, used a rideshare app to get home after dark and then back out the next day to ride back into the city. Definitely intend to spend more time out there ask the fall colors intensify. Lovely experience.

Reminder to bring a second lock and lock up your wheels! I’m optimistic you could have threaded that lock between your back wheel, the frame, and the rack.

Seen in Mill City

Sorry to whoever’s bike this is - bike thieves suck.

A lovely, warm, 37 mile bike ride today through some of my favorite happy places. It only would have been more autumnally perfect if there had been a slight chill in the air, which there most certainly wasn’t. Still, biking through leaves while others float down in yellow and orange splendor is a pretty fine way to spend an afternoon.

Pretty spectator day and I managed to get in about 10 miles. Was hoping for more but it didn't work out. How about you?

Absolutely love my Raleigh Sprite, they’re surprisingly easy to find in the twin cities, idk why, because elsewhere they’re pretty rare and expensive. Best part is you can find them in pretty good shape! I got mine almost a year ago now and it’s such a joy to ride! Definitely recommend vintage 3 speeds.

I was enjoying the gorgeous weather this afternoon and traveling WB on the parkway. I rode on the right side and plenty of cars went by. One car got really close and the driver blasted his horn and pointed at the bike path. So obnoxious.

I’d hope most of you are familiar with the critical mass movement for cyclists. As the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro is the best city in the country for cyclists, you would think the many many bikers that live here would be involved in such a public series of protests and demonstrations related to cycling.

I haven’t found too much on if more than a few critical mass rides happened here. I would assume that is because our cities (try to) care about bikers and infrastructure for them, so there was not much of a need to organize and demonstrate for a problem we didn’t have on nearly as large a scale as other cities.

My question is, Have any of you been on a critical mass ride here, and does this form of protest have a use and purpose here and in the future?

Ride the grid of Downtown Minneapolis to make a waffle shape

https://strava.app.link/uqt5rJj1KNb

Initially planned to just circumnavigate Medicine Lake and head back to NE, which is why this route looks kinda weird. Capriciously decided to just go for it when I got back to the Theodore Wirth Pkwy. Stopped once to let my dog out and wolf down a pita + handful of cashews. Done on a Dual Sport 2 Gen 5.

I’ve been waiting for the perfect day to bike up and check out Elk Creek Park Reserve, and today was as beautiful of a day for biking as one could ever want. It’s a lovely ride; I’ve never been up there before. I got just under 62 miles round trip. Still not getting quite the miles I am longing for 2.5 years into this cycling adventure of mine, but I console myself that 62 miles for a 55 yo dude on 2.2 tires who is currently about a quart low on testosterone and serotonin is nothing to sneeze at. Minnesota cycling is 🏆.

Post road from highway 5 to Terminal 2 at MSP was recently redone, and now there's a two-way protected bike path adjacent the street, on the south side.

I'm happy for the additional bike infrastructure, and it's nice to see there's a safer way to bike to the airport. I'm curious though, do any of you actually bike to the airport for travel? If so, I'm interested to hear more. It seems like the logistics for this would be more trouble than it's worth. I could see maybe if you have a folding bike and you box it up and bring it with.

34th Ave S, the other road leading to Terminal 2, is unchanged and therefore still treacherous on a bike. So if the goal was to make it easier for casual cyclists to bike around the airport for fun, they'll need to either backtrack on Post road, cut through the cemetery if it's open, or brave 34th Ave.

Terminal 1 remains, and probably will always remain, effectively impossible to bike to without using the light rail.

Now that it's getting chillier and the leaves have been changing, anybody have favorite routes to see the leaves changing?

How about neighborhoods to see fun halloween decorations?

Today was the first day my hands got cold riding this year with my usual fingerless riding gloves, which reminds me winter is coming. Last year I had a flat bar bike and used 45Nrth Cobrafist pogies. This year I have a drop bar bike with a Salsa Cowchipper bar that has some flare. This will only be my second winter in Minnesota and I am looking for advice on drop bar pogies: do you, in your experience, prefer the Draugenklaw by 45Nrth or the Extreme Road by Bar Mitts? Thanks in advance.

Thought this post on marketplace looked pretty sus..