Yesterday’s first-ever Cyclovia in Minneapolis was a rousing success. Actually called Open Streets and organized by the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, Minneapolitans were able to ride their bikes on Lyndale Avenue, which was closed to cars from 42nd Street to 22nd Street. Much of that roadway runs through some fairly prominent retail and mixed-use areas, which provided a wonderful urban setting for people of all ages to get out and ride and enjoy the whole street, free of cars, for a late spring Sunday.

My colleague John Breitinger from NorthMarq posted photos at Flickr here.

As some of the photos show, everyone was out there. I saw were bicycles, unicycles, old-fashioned bicycles, rickshaws, recumbents (a train of them that people could get on and off of!), tall bikes, bike bands, and even the mayor on his bicycle (no surprise there). There were games, contests, dancing, food stands and even a big group doing yoga right in the middle of the road. It was wonderful to own the street for a day. Perhaps there was no better gauge than to see the look in kids’ eyes as they rode down the street, knowing they had it to themselves, safe from cars and free from their parents watching over them (well, maybe their parents were still watching).

Open Streets, the Cyclovia of Minneapolis, gave us all one more reason to love and see beauty in our fair city, and perhaps that is the most important thing of all.