{"id":2000,"date":"2023-07-21T14:24:26","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T19:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/?p=2000"},"modified":"2023-07-21T18:28:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-21T23:28:30","slug":"owatonna-suburbs-to-small-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/2023\/07\/21\/owatonna-suburbs-to-small-towns\/","title":{"rendered":"Owatonna, suburbs to small towns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I started my ride southbound towards Des Moines. Lakeville seems like one of the last suburbs of the twin cities. I went from there southbound including via Faribault and Medford to Owatonna. This meant rural roads instead of bike paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was along the Interstate 35 corridor. There seemed to be some spill-over traffic due to construction on the interstate. Also some slight rolling hills. So this felt less like Illinois\/Indiana with their flat terrain and grid streets. Also saw some lakes (not enough to get anywhere close to 10,000). It was a good ride and stayed in the low 80s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Starting out, I did have a section of bicycle trail along the interstate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Soon enough I was on rural roads that looked like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My RideWithGPS route had a short section of gravel road. It started out easy enough until it seemed to end at a house with a large barking dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I got past the dog, lifted my bike over a low barrier and then was on the other side of this fence. I was able to get around the gate. However it made me wonder how the route selection logic decided on this as an OK route. If I had been coming the other direction, the locked gate and “no trespassing” signs would have dissuaded me but coming the back way I was committed unless I wanted to go back and detour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Minnesota has built more roundabouts than other places I’ve cycled so far. I found it an interesting juxtaposition to have rural elements (e.g. corn, fields) with this roundabout as well as a half mile notice. This underscores how today’s ride was sort of rural but not really remote rural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I crossed over I-35. You can see traffic backed up from construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Faribault – a mix of patriotism and pest control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bicycled through Faribault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There were several large solar installations south of town. I stopped for lunch in Medford and then had a few miles left until Owatonna. Overall, a straightforward and not difficult ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am ~160 miles north of Ames Iowa. In four days, Ames will be a stopover point for RAGBRAI, a large (10,000+ cyclist) ride across Iowa. I am thinking of joining the ride for a day as they ride from Ames to Des Moines. It will be a busy ride, but also interesting to see the event. Here is an article<\/a> that describes it…<\/p>\n\n\n

WP Strava ERROR 403 Forbidden - See full error by addingdefine( 'WPSTRAVA_DEBUG', true );<\/code>to wp-config.php<\/pre>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I started my ride southbound towards Des Moines. Lakeville seems like one of the last suburbs of the twin cities. I went from there southbound including via Faribault and Medford to Owatonna. This meant rural roads instead of bike …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2007,"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions\/2007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvermeulen.org\/gone2look4america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}