Eccentric Aspects.

Summer is now, at least from a cultural standpoint, over.

Yes, yes: the first day of Fall isn’t technically for another two weeks, but we have to face facts: the wind is already a bit colder, the days already seem gloomier, and the leaves are already starting to turn.

So, how did I do on my quest to cover all of the Minnesota bike trails?

Answer: Not even close.

Unfortunately, I, as I’ve been telling people, “slacked off by doing work”. For two months of the summer, I was working, and, while my current work situation affords me a great deal of mobility, it, like most software work, just sucked away the time.

In spite of that, I did cover the following trails:

• 29th Street Midtown Greenway

• Big Rivers Regional Trail

• Bruce Vento Trail

• Cannon Valley Trail

• Casey Jones State Trail *

• Cedar Lake Trail

• Dakota Rail Regional Trail

• Gateway Trail

• Hardwood Creek Trail

• Mille Lacs Soo Line Trail

• Minnehaha Trail

• Minneapolis Diagonal Trail

• Minnesota Valley State Trail *

• Red Jacket Trail

• Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail

• St. Anthony Falls Heritage Trail (Stone Arch Bridge)

• Sunrise Prairie Trail

(The starred trails are either only partially made up of former railroad, or, parts of the railroad grade haven’t yet been improved enough to allow traversal by a Brompton. A horse, maybe.)

In raw trail numbers, that’s about 37% of the state’s trails, but, at a total of 264 miles, these trails only represent about 25% of the mileage.

I’m hoping to knock off at least of couple of the longer ones before the snow flies; maybe I can push the mileage to 30%.