Cycling September/October 2026

Some photos from my September/October cycling events.  Most of them group rides by that time of the year.  I do a week long ride in July usually, but Ming's new job took him out of the partner biz last year, and I didn't feel like two years in a row on my own.  Which is ok...but I truly missed it, so next year I have to find something even if it's on my own.

This is the Tunes, Toons, and Loons ride.  Or maybe Toons, Tunes, and Loons.  A bassist for SallyForth and Favourite Daughter I had gone to see at the Harriet Bandshell and at the Edina courtyard area (I'll get to a music post soon) Insta-ed that the group ride was happening and I thought it sounded fun.  It met at the coffee shop at Broken Clock Brewing (Curioso) and I biked all the way into North Minneapolis.  I ordered a coffee as I was early and as I looked up from my order....bassist! Surprised, I said her name and she looked at me with genuine confusion. I remarked I'd seen her play and was there on her advice and didn't expect her to be my barista.  She found me coffee and let me know we were starting at the OTHER Curioso coffee shop in Uptown.  Which was fun, because I biked down to the other shop with her boyfriend and friends on a nice warm up ride and had a great tine talking local routes and stories.

This is all of us at the coffee shop.  Besides her mom (and dad) and me, it was a pretty young cloud worrying about water conservation and cleanliness in the lakes area.  I'm way in the back representing the "new" state flag.

We stopped by a few different spots that were highlighting their sunken gardens for water run off and how they stopped pollution getting in the run off, and then ended up back at Broken Clock for music.  One of the things I enjoyed was a detour onto the trail that cuts through Minneapolis under the Twins stadium.  Completely new to me, but a bit of a game changer.  On the way up, I pedaled past all the on-the-street Pickleball courts the city sets up on the riverfront, so I went right past it without seeing it.

That's the bassist in the background.  She sings and plays a variety of music including Ska.  At the moment, she's off on a nationwide tour with a well-known Ska band.  Good beer at Clock Works  Wish I lived closer.  My kid and I like Venn because it's a coffee shop that turns into a brewery later in the day.  Good place to work remote.  Amusingly, I saw a FB post by the new social director at Clock Works looking for local music acts and said, "Um, maybe check with the bassist at the coffee shop in the building.  She knows a lot of local acts." 

I did think about going to a DJ Dance Ride going on that night, and then decided I wasn't going to make it several more hours and didn't want to pedal home that late at night. I have.  I didn't want to.  So I popped past Animales to see Sarah Morris and check out the venue where we were going to have our monthly friends' dinner.  A much better choice.  I was famished and the DJ dance ride only has smores.  When I asked for a seat, I asked for a good seat where I could see Sarah and the person seating me said, "Do you  know the musician?"  I said, yes, but not as close friends or anything.  Then Sarah said from the stage as I was being seated, "Hi, Scott!"  I got a dubious look that implied I might not know what friendship was as I was seated.

This is the DJ Dance ride.  It started at Perennial Cycle.  Unlike that previous almost 70 mile ride, I drove up to the start of this one.  I went to the last one of the season.  So I knew it would be dark (I rode home in the dark on that last one, I just prefer not to, even with my new lights).  And, it was raining at the start, but only barely.  So I thought it might clear by the time I drove up. It did, and it stayed nice and cool.  Huge turnout.

Here we are blocking traffic in Uptown near my sister-in-law's old apartment. People do not like mass rides, although we were only on the streets for as long as it took us to get to the trails.

First stop, one of the light rail stations that wasn't in use yet.

Some actual dancing! For a while I was next to a kid who looked like he was an extra out of Newsies.  He definitely upstaged me with his aggressive dancing.  At one point at the stop, a clearly high guy came up and asked if I knew how many stops there were left.  I said no, but I thought one.  He noted he absolutely had to plan for the right time to "get out the homegrown!!!" (three exclamation points is probably insufficient for his enthusiasm).  I'm not sure how he managed to stay on the bike as he was, it had to be mentally tilting all over the place.  Dancing...sure.  Falling looks like dancing most of the time.

There was a bike with an open flame where I could cook a smore.

A better picture of everyone toasting their mallows.

Video of the park stop where we danced and had smores.  I'm glad I went to the last one of the year where it got so dark.  Made for a good vibe.
 

The DJ trailer had wheels, but also a hitch so another bicycle could help pull it.  Pretty heavy with the turntable, speakers, DJ, et al.  Here's The local City Council President sitting in as one of our DJs. Should out to the Joyful Riders Club as well for a great event.

Nice picture of the park.  Some people really went all in with the lights.  I felt like I was skimping a bit.  It was here I realized I'd put in about 12000 steps of dancing.  I wasn't standing around like a post.  I don't think most of my friends or family would have recognized me in that environment.

From the Give Us Wings ride with Ming.  That's a charity ride to raise funds for communities in Africa that include education, health, and business.  The goal is to uplift whole communities.  My sister and mom both volunteered for Give Us Wings and did health care while there.  

It was raining the whole time we were on the ride, and many of the trails were ripped up for construction purposes.  These are my socks at breakfast at the OPH afterwards.  Ming and I still managed to get lost this year, as we usually do, even though he was in charge of some of the signs.  But we figured it out, turned around, and helped a few other people get "unlost" who did exactly what we did (they weren't following us, so it wasn't our fault like it was last year when we almost bonked someone who followed us).


This is from the Twin Cities Bike Classic with Mean Mr. Mustard and Ming.  Got in a pretty long ride.  A little extra even as we parked at the Pancake Bistro a few miles from the start and carbed up before t he ride.  I went to Dave Hill at the Parkway with friends, and he's known for his antics around traffic cones, so I shared this moment of working-across-the-aisle with him on Instagram.

Had been a while since I'd been to the Minnetonka Train Depot.  Was a good ride.  I talked to a bartender from Venn for a bit I often see on Fridays (see above regarding remote) who's excited about doing RAGBRAI next year and is practicing some longer rides.

Whew....that might seem like a lot, but I got in a lot more bicycling doing rides to outdoor music venues this year than I did to group rides.  Group rides just happened to anchor the end of the year.  I have music rides in my queue.  I'll catch up on those sometime soon as well.  Get my year a little better documented for posterity.