Join us on Saturday, July 13, for our first annual Bike for Beer! This pub crawl, or in this case, pub roll, will be hitting three different beer-centric locations over the course of 7 miles: Rapids Brewing Company (brewpub), Klockow Brewing Company (brewery & taproom), and The Pickled Loon Saloon (gastropub). Each stop will have free beer drawings!
We’ll be meeting at RBC at 1 p.m. and spending 45 minutes to an hour at each location (more information on route and other details below), finishing by coming into town to Klockow Brewing for a Kill the Keg special and a drawing for prizes from Ardent Bicycles.

Advice from a year-round bicycle commuter:
So you’re going to bike around town, utilizing streets, trails, and highways? Sound daunting? Perhaps, but then again, so does everything that you’ve never done before! Trust me, as a year-round bike commuter for the past 12 years, I’ve seen it all. And no matter what time of year, whether in a small town or a big city, commuting by bicycle is a fun way to get around, and as long as you follow a few basic rules, perfectly safe.

First thing you keep in mind as being a part of Bike for Beer, you’re going to be with a group. Particularly when biking in a populated area, there is strength in numbers! The best thing you can do for bike safety is visibility, and the best thing you can do for visibility is for there to be too many of you to ignore.
So you’re off to a good start with this ride!

Sticking with visibility, there are a couple key things a bike commuter should do:

Wear bright/reflective clothing.

Have sufficiently bright lights on your bike, particularly a red light on the back.

Once you’re perfectly visible, the next key thing to do is always pay attention. You should always be aware of your surroundings, from any obstacles that might be on the path in front of you, to any cars that you might be sharing the road with. Making yourself seen is a great start, but in the end, you’re in control of your bicycle. Ride with purpose.
Lastly, safety gear is always a must. Unless you’re about to tackle a mountain, this gear is actually quite simple:

Helmet

Protective glasses

The helmet is an obvious piece of equipment, but I would argue the glasses are just as, if not more, important. Depending on the day, there could be debris in the air when it’s windy or raindrops from a random shower. If you’re being kept from keeping your eyes open and on the road, your likelihood of a crash has just increased. That, of course, is where the helmet comes in!

But enough of preparing for the worst. Bicycling is fun, after all! We’ll be riding as a group at a leisurely pace after seeing our friends at Rapids Brewing Company. If you win a free beer, we recommend saving it for next time so that you don’t drink too much on the ride, but you do you. We just want to make sure everyone’s safe (if at any point someone appears to be too intoxicated to ride safely, you’re out of the ride and we’re calling you a cab). We’ll ride across the footbridge over the Mississippi River and follow that trail nearly the entire way to Klockow Brewing, where another round of pints will be available. After about another hour, and after another round of free pint drawings, we’ll hit the longest leg of our journey! First down 2nd Ave. S, then Airport Road once at the edge of town, we follow that to Harristown Road which connects to Hwy 169. We’ll ride the wide shoulder of the highway the rest of the way to the shore of Pokegama Lake and the Pickled Loon, for more pints, drawings for drinks, and a little bite to eat to refuel!

Last but not least, we’ll ride back into town and regroup again at Klockow Brewing, where you’re invited to try to win a free prize via our Kill the Keg special, and another round of drawings will be done, this time to win free bike swag compliments of Ardent Bicycles!