Fill up your tires, strap on a helmet and get ready to hit the trail! Minneapolis is a wonderful city to explore by bike, filled with parks, lakes, and an exciting downtown riverfront. Planning to bring the kids along? Perfect. Biking is a fun and healthy way for families to spend time together outdoors. We’ve sketched out four of our favorite Minneapolis bike trails that incorporate classic cityscapes with kid-pleasing attractions.
Minneapolis bike trails along the Mississippi River
West River Parkway Bike Trail
Start: Lake Street-Marshall Bridge, Minneapolis
End: Bike either north along West River Parkway from Lake Street to the Stone Arch Bridge in downtown Minneapolis or south from Lake Street to Minnehaha Regional Park.
Distance: These two Minneapolis bike trail segments are about 4.5 miles one-way.
FFTC BookHounds Family BookClub brings stories to life.
Join the fun. Each month you will receive an email with a book list around a specific theme for all types of readers from picture books. We will add some activity suggestions to do together as a family (or not, it’s really up to you). Sign up to become a BookHound and bring stories to life.
When looking for Woodbury Family Fun at local parks, we had to approach it a bit differently than with other municipalities. Woodbury plans new neighborhoods with a designated park space. However, the city waits to develop the park for a couple years until the neighborhood evolves. The parks department then designs a unique park based on the specific needs and complexion of the neighborhood. This has resulted in a lot of small parks with individual personalities throughout Woodbury. While each park is really built for its small community, there is a connecting trail system running through the city bridging the parks into a cohesive whole. This makes it hard to pick just 10 parks. Instead we’ve highlighted 5 more community-oriented parks and mapped several others that could be combined into a family bike tour.
Woodbury parks are open, but the City is not cleaning the playgrounds and discourages using them at this time.
1. Watch a Family Film at Ojibway Park
Ojibway Park building is closed at this time.
Starlight Cinema summer movies begin begin July 9th this year and run through August on select Thursdays. Find the line up here or on our calendar. This park is also home to a new accessible playground and a skate plaza.
Image courtesy City of Woodbury. New playground and park building.
2. Visit Madison’s Place Playground at HealthEast Sports Center
The splash pad remains closed and may not open in 2020. The Indoor Sports Center is also closed at this time.
This all-inclusive playground is so popular that we’ve had complaints from residents that it is too busy. Who wouldn’t love its fully-accessible, sun-shaded play decks, swings and sensory play equipment?
Carver Lake Park has a 5-mile off-road bike trail and a “bike playground” where kids can develop off-road biking skills in a safe environment. It has loops for various ability levels, including a tot track, pump track, and an advanced loop with challenging features.
The DNR lists Powers Lake in its FiN Guide because it is a good pond for fishing with kids. It has a good stock of fish, including Bluegill, Black Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Northern Pike, Walleye, Yellow Perch and Bullhead. The park has a fishing pier and nearby restrooms – both amenities the DNR looks for when determining a lake is a “Kids Pond”. For more fun, download the guide before heading out. It contains pictures of the various fish species, tips for beginners, and an Anglers Diary kids can fill out.
Not to be confused with Tamarack Nature Center in White Bear Lake, this natural preserve is a great place to get close to nature. This 169-acre rich-fen wetland is surrounded by woodlands and home to the rare Tamarack trees for which it is named.
This is a bit of an experiment, I used Google maps to create these bicycle tours. While Woodbury has many paths that connect its parks, these routes do not use nearly as many bike trails as I had hoped for. You could easily convert them to driving tours. We would love to hear your thoughts on these routes if you try them. How did it go for you? And what would you change? Do you recommend a better route?
East Side Woodbury Parks Bike Tour
The east side ride visits 6 neighborhood parks is approximately 10 miles long.
Your Turn. Which is your favorite park for some Woodbury Family Fun? Leave us a message and let us know what park you love and why you love it. We’ll share with the community.
