Away but still biking strong

It’s been a tragically long time since I’ve posted on MplsRad. Curiously enough, these last few months of silence have witnessed some highly noteworthy bike-related events.  Not being completely sure what to write about next has thrown this blog into an identity crisis.

Here’s a sample of the available topics.

On the bike front, we recently added a Bakfiets to the fleet which has revolutionized our child and grocery hauling capabilities. I urge anybody who’s been holding back because of the hefty price tag to just do it.

Minneapolis was recently given the title #1 Bike Friendly City by Bicycle Magazine, displacing Portland who held the distinction previously.   This is encouraging and somewhat bittersweet for somebody who holds up cities in Europe as the model for doing bike infrastructure well. There’s still so much work to do.

We recently returned from a trip to Holland and Germany, where we visited several cities known for having very strong bike cultures (Amsterdam, Oldenburg, and Bremen).  Meet-ups included a chat with Workcycles Henry Cutler and a wonderful day with Beatrix Wupperman and Richard Grassick, the creators of Beauty and the Bike.  It was also good to visit two cities, Hamburg and Berlin, both of which are attempting to build new bike cultures.  I returned from this trip much invigorated as to just how achievable building new “world-class” bicycle-friendly cities might be.

There’s so much great stuff to write about: new friends, new bikes, and fresh thoughts on infrastructure. That’s where my blog’s identity crisis comes into play. I’ve always vacillated between trying to keep things light and going completely off the deep end in raging-bike activist fashion. What types of topics do you enjoy reading about and where should we go next?

Talk to you very soon.