Four Twin Cities Area Fall Color Rides

The Twin Cities metro area has miles of roads and trails that offer great views of the fall colors.  This is my favorite time of year to ride not only for the vivid change on the trees but cooler temperatures make riding much more comfortable.

Image Credit: MN DNR

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fall Color Map is now live and will be updated by State Park and State Recreation Area (SRA's) staff.  With the wet Spring Minnesota has had and a good growing season during the Summer, trees are very healthy and a magnificent color display is expected throughout the state now through mid-October.

Below are some of my favorites near the Twin Cities that I try to visit this time of year.  They will be posted as a RideWithGPS route that can be used to print cue sheets, download files* for your gps device or use with the RideWithGPS app.

*FIT is the best format for turn-by-turn directions on modern Garmin Edge Devices.
*TCX is compatible with most modern GPS units. Provides turn by turn directions including custom cue entries, but may consume more space than FIT.
*GPX is useful for any GPS unit. Contains no cuesheet entries, only track information (breadcrumb trail).

St. Paul Fall Colors Along the Mississippi River

21.3 miles

823 feet elevation gain
FIT Course (.fit)
TCX Course (.tcx)

GPX Track (.gpx)

Cuesheets

Lake Minnetonka Fall Colors Loop

35.2 miles

884 feet elevation gain
FIT Course (.fit)
TCX Course (.tcx)

GPX Track (.gpx)
Cuesheets

Tour of Hastings Fall Colors Ride

37.1 miles

1,214 feet elevation gain

FIT Course (.fit)

TCX Course (.tcx)

GPX Track (.gpx)

Cuesheets

UMore Park/Vermillion Highlands 

Mixed Surface Fall Colors Ride

31.3 miles

590 feet elevation gain

FIT Course (.fit)

TCX Course (.tcx)

GPX Track (.gpx)

Cuesheets

Note: "Vermillion Highlands is open to various hunting activities during specific times of the year. Trail users are advised to wear blaze orange clothing during these seasons. Please visit the Wildlife Management page or call the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources at 651-322-4643 to learn more."

Don't delay as the fall colors won't stick around for long.  Take one or several of the rides mentioned in this post and experience some great Minnesota scenery on a bicycle.

Creating/Sharing Routes & Cue Sheets and Navigating Off-Line Using RideWithGPS

Planning a ride/group ride is very easy with RideWithGPS and is my go-to choice because of its many free standard features.  It's an easy to use online mapping tool that was designed with cyclists in mind.  Use it to plan out a ride or to share a route.  I can share my routes on my blog, social media, by creating a PDF map/cue sheet or with other RideWithGPS users by making my maps Public.  To see how easy it is to plan your next ride, watch the "Create a Route" video below for a quick tutorial.

One of the features I like about RideWithGPS when planning group rides is the ability to make a PDF file of the route complete with map, description and cue sheets to share with other riders.  There are many customizable options when creating this PDF file and the tutorials below will show you how it's done.

Another way to share a route is by creating a GPX Track (.gpx) file for use with Garmin units or to be loaded into other mapping sites like MapMyRide, Runtastic or Endomondo for use with a smartphone for navigation.  It is very easy to do, after the route is created and saved click on the "Export" tab and select "GPX Track (.gpx)" and a dialogue box will open and allow saving of the gpx file.

To make it easy for my friends or members of a group ride to download the PDF Map/Cue sheet or gpx file I use Dropbox to share a download link to those files.  This way, by posting the share link on social media or in an email, anyone can download these files for printing or loading into their favorite mapping site/software.  Below is an example of a PDF Map/Cue sheet I recently created for an upcoming Ride Like A Girl Cycling women's gravel ride.

For those using the RideWithGPS app for Android or IOS, voiced turn-by-turn navigation for any route planned on the website is now available.  To make this feature even better, RideWithGPS has released off-line maps for iPhone and Android for rides planned on the website to be navigated using the app without cell service or internet connection.

Sign up and start planning, sharing rides and generating cue sheets today.  For more information on RideWithGPS, visit the FAQ page.  More tutorial videos can be found on the RideWithGPS You Tube channel.