Bike Day-Tour de Tonka!

Our area has a bike event called "Tour de Tonka".  It's not a race, but a ride, so says the website.  Riders can choose their route from a selection of 6 different lengths, from 26 to 100 miles.  The routes basically circle a big nearby lake called Lake Minnetonka, of which one of the bays is just blocks from our house.  So one of the routes (43 miles) took bikers right on the main road near our house and then met up with another route (51 miles) in town.  I told the kids that if we woke up early on Saturday (the day of the event), we could go to the main road to see the bikers. 

We got up just in time.  We all got dressed and got on our bikes, throwing a few things in the bike carrier just in case the event was interesting enough to stick around for awhile.  I really figured we'd bike to the main road, sit and watch the groups of bikers for ten minutes, and go home.  I was wrong.

I also figured Eric would not care to go.  I was wrong on that too.  I forget we are an all-together family. :)

Anyway, we all rode bikes (Sophia was behind Eric on a bike chaser and Ruthie and Lydia were in a bike carrier pulled by me).  We went to the main road and the kids were excited to see the first bikers go by (they were also excited to see the police car parked at the intersection with a policeman stopping traffic when bikers came by--such simple delights!).  Eric suggested we bike down the block a little.  We went one way and debated on whether we should keep going and surprise our friends down the road.  In the end, we decided to head in to town the way the bikers were going.  Now mind you, at this point, we are headed on a three mile long (one way) bike ride with no diaper bag and no breakfast.  I had tossed a baggie of blueberries and a box of Cheerios in the carrier along with my camera, but that was it.

But what a morning of great fun it turned out to be!  We'd never biked all together like that as a family (since Ruthie) and never had the children biked through town like we did.  It was a little nerve-wracking at times, like when we had to go around a police car that was parked on the sidewalk (more traffic directing for the bike event) by turning out to ride like a car on a busy road.

We ended up at the Farmers' Market.  Eric took the older kids to look around and I took my crew to find somewhere to sit and watch the bikers and eat "breakfast".  It turned out to be a great spot.

  I do have a kickstand, but it is just safer to lay my bike down like that rather than wait until someone knocks it down.  We sat in this little lakeside park area and pulled out the berries and Cheerios.  A few seconds after we settled in, we watched for bikers and realized we were really close to their route.  Like, really close.

Turned out that at this point they leave the road and come onto the sidewalks to go over a bridge and through a short woods to meet up to a bike trail.  It was all pretty exciting.  There were two volunteers nearby whose job it was to make sure the bikes turned off the road and onto the sidewalk  They had giant foam fingers to help them.  There was an extra, so I showed Lydia how to use it.  She wore it for about a minute and then decided it was better used as something to sit on.  In the above picture you can see the rest of the family coming from the Market in the background.  They surprised us by bringing more breakfast: grape tomatoes, fresh bread, and blueberry rhubarb jam-YUM!  Joshy let us use his knife to spread the jam and we all had a wonderfully delicious breakfast as we cheered on the bikers going by.

Of course, I was a little creeped out that we were using the fish scaler part of Joshy's pocket knife, but he assured he had never used it for anything (and we bought it new).  Eric also ran over to a nearby gas station to pick up water.  Thankfully, the weather was beautiful, but it was still hot and we'd done a lot of biking already.

After awhile the kids wandered off to explore the docks adjacent to this park area.  I was able to find a private spot facing the lake to feed Ruthie (I love the convenience of nursing-didn't have to worry about packing breakfast for her!).  Again, such a beautiful day!  And no one fell in!

 

After Lydi got up, Sophia soon discovered the foam finger.  Not surprisingly, she was a great cheerleader for these bikers.  She got a lot of "high fives" from bikers going past.  Best of all, the other volunteer said she could keep the foam finger.  She was delighted.

It was pretty inspiring watching all those bikers.  My favorites were the tandem bikers.  There seemed to be two types: older couples (as in, a husband and wife, I'm presuming) and dads and sons/daughters (I didn't notice any moms and sons/daughters).  The best was a bike made for three, ridden by a dad and two young daughters, all in matching t-shirts.  I think next year maybe some of us will have to participate in this event as more than just spectators (I did not see any bike carriers, so I am guessing it will be Eric and Joshy).  For now, I'm just proud us of for having a resourceful breakfast and getting in a healthy family bike ride. 

Of course, the one hard part was Ruthie crying nearly all the way home.  A few blocks before we got home, she finally quieted down, and I looked back to see Lydi holding Ruthie's hand.  So sweet!  I wanted to get a photo, but as soon as I got off my bike it was back to the tears.  Oh well...it's a good memory.