Not having to pack up camp sure makes it easy to get out on the road earlier.  I woke up around 8:30, ate a semblance of breakfast at the hotel consisting of tiny cheap muffins, fruit, and instant oatmeal packets (I did add water and discarded the packet in case you were wondering), and made a hasty departure.  Frankly, this is how every day should have been.  Camping it overrated, thank you very much.

Thanks to an earlier start and more favorable elevations, I made quite quick progress.  Due to extensive morning hydration, I had to detour briefly to a park in Otsego to use the porta potty.  After that it was smooth sailing.  Sort of.  Minnesota really needs to clean the gravel off the road shoulders.

Somewhere outside Otsego, I was headed downhill when I noticed an SUV pull over with people frantically waving out the window at me.  Remember how I was going downhill at the time?  Yes.  That downhill was followed by an uphill which I was madly gunning to coast up.  And just as I whizzed by the SUV, I realized I knew the occupants quite well.  Jim and Alvina happen to be the only people I know on the north end of the cities and they, purely by coincidence, happened to be on the same road at the same time.  I stopped partway up the hill and coasted backwards down it to say hello.

From then on it was a mixture of riding on roads, some smoother than others, some with narrow shoulders, some with wide shoulders, and some which the Mississippi River trail planners really ought to reconsider, until I reached the series of parks along the river.  These parks extend most of the way from the outer suburbs to downtown and beyond.  Some of the area has road and bike path.  In those sections I opted for the road.  In places where the road ended, I had to use the path.  Most of the path in the area is rougher than I would prefer, but there are sections which just got repaved and aren't even open yet.  It's a bit of a patchwork of trails, but it's much better scenery and away from traffic.  While not the fastest place to ride velomobile, I did find it quite pleasant.

On the north side of the city there is a couple miles through an industrial area in a not so upscale part of town.  This part I did not enjoy, but it did seem safe enough.  It ends quite abruptly and deposits you on the lovely parkway along the river.  That parkway took me all the way past downtown to Minnehaha Falls on the south side of Minneapolis.  That area is all very well known to me as I've ridden there a lot of times.  West River Parkway is always a pleasant ride, moreso on a weekday when there are fewer people about.

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From there I cut across Richfield, the suburb to the north of me, on the Nine Mile Creek Trail to my home.  My cats have eagerly greeted me and welcomed me home.  I have showered and removed all the stuff from the velomobile.  I am happy to be home and am looking forward to sleeping in a very comfortable bed today.

So, will I do a velomobile tour like this again?  Probably not.  If I did, I doubt I would camp.  I don't like pedaling with all the extra weight.  I also would make sure I chose a time when it wasn't so hot.  Even today by the time I got home shortly after 2pm, it was already getting really steamy.  A velomobile is not a pleasant place when it is hot. And I don't think I would choose a route in Minnesota.  The rail trails here are used in the winter for snowmobiling.  I think that is part of what destroys the surface.  Certainly they are not getting well-maintained for cycling purposes.  However, I will say that the mileage I covered and the time in which I covered it is much faster and further than I would have on any of my bikes.  My wattage was pretty low and still I averaged around 15mph on the way back (we shall not speak about the uphill into a headwind on the way out.) With normal wattage I would have averaged more like 18mph I think.  I certainly could have pedaled harder.  My legs never reached a point of actually being fatigued, which both surprises me, and pleases me.  This trip was very different from any of my other trips in that I was there purely to bike and not at all for the scenery as you probably noticed from the lack of photos.  I promise I did take video of all but yesterday when I was in a foul mood.

What is my plan for the next tour?  Back to Germany and Austria next summer, likely at the beginning of summer.  I'd like to return to the Tauern Radweg and the Koenigsee area.  I have a few different route ideas that I will settle on when the time comes.  And, it will be done on my Azub Origami folding recumbent.  I am not going to ship my velomobile to Europe.  I have concluded that the most fun velo riding for me is right here at home where I can cruise fast on smooth roads and go out when the weather is favorable.