2009 Minneapolis Bike Tour - September 20

Plying their two-wheeled, handle-barred thrones
Still waking up with stiff morning groans
All shapes and sizes arriving en masse
In ones, twos and threesomes, some lay in the grass

To stretch before leaving this chaos of park
And race off to finish before the first lark
They’ll pedal and pant and push as they ride
Along the paved parkways with lakes at their side

But most of us will take a more leisurely pace
And treat it as fun – not so much as a race
First Kenwood with neighbors out lining the street
To wave and encourage this annual fete’

Of people together enjoying the morn
Three thousand plus strong, on bicycles borne
To Lake of the Isles, Nokomis, Calhoun
Look to the west, we can still see the moon

Past Harriet and Cedar, with joggers on paths
To the Falls of Minnehaha, a rest stop at last
The river miles start here and we follow it down
Under the freeway and up into town

Past Gold Medal Park and the Guthrie we ply
O’er old Stone Arch Bridge so flat we can fly
Across the deep water and St. Anthony Main
We follow the river on cobblestones lain

So long ago, when horses trod there
And hundreds of grain men worked for their share
Then northward we turned to follow the flow
To Nord’east and neighbors who pay as they go

The old Grain Belt brewery, still regal in age
As we pedaled our tandem, we turned back the page
Of time, for these homesteads had been here for years
Through good times and bad, through good days and tears

Crost’ over in Camden, then southward we roam
And rode the wide parkways that many call home
Then Theodore Wirth, the park known by name
Through green woods and landscape – not wild, not tame

And now almost done, just one piece to press
A couple of miles of trail to address
And back to the park from where we’d begun
Tired, happy and glad. We’d had so much fun. ©