This is another good example of rides you can make in a day and close to your home. Now, I know the parks I have mentioned here, while being within easy driving distance of my home in the Twin Cities, are not within easy reach of those living outstate. My point in including these rides is to convince others that there are almost always nice rides within distance of their homes, no matter where they live.
Sucker Lake/Vadnais Lake Regional Park is in Shoreview, MN, just north of the beautiful capital city of St. Paul (did I mention I lived and worked in St. Paul for many years?—I love that city). The park can be accessed in several spots but my favorite parking lot is the one off Rice Street just south of Hwy. 96. It has one of the nicest entrances I’ve seen.
I used to live close to the park and would ride my bike to it using that entrance. Now whenever I go there I have to haul the bike but after parking in the lot I always make sure to ride from the parking lot to Rice street and back so I can enjoy the entrance on bicycle.
The trail runs along the western edge of Sucker Lake (not a pretty name but it is a pretty lake) through wooded areas with the lake almost always in sight, and the entire trail is very scenic. The trail is a very nice, well-maintained paved trail and runs through the Sucker Lake portion and, after crossing Co. Rd. ‘F’, continues to the Vadnais Lake section which runs alongside, you might have guessed, Lake Vadnais. It comes to an end at the St. Paul water purification plant, which has a couple of old buildings extending into the lake (one actually half under water) that are interesting to see. There is also a spur trail that leads from a parking lot on the Vadnais Lake part of the trail and makes a loop through the woods on the eastern side of the lake.
You can easily make a 10-mile round-trip ride out of it and if you want to go farther, there are several trails (Snail Lake and Grass Lake) to the west easily accessible using County Rd. ‘F’, which has a good shoulder, and then Gramsie Rd., (to Grass Lake), or Snail Lake using Snail Lake Blvd., a relatively quiet city street (to Snail Lake, obviously).
