Birchleggings Club Third Annual Dakota Trail Bicycle Ride Wrap-Up!

The Third Annual Birchleggings Club Dakota Trail Bicycle Ride held on August 13, 2026 was a big success. We had 24 Riders sign up with 18 riders completing rides of 57, 38, 29, and 13 miles along the beautiful Dakota Trail that goes from Wayzata to Lester Prairie, Minnesota.

The group was made up of 4 Uberleggers, Birchleggers, a number of Birkie and Korte skiers, and Twin City Bicycling Club and community members. Three founding members of the ride from 2024 included Greg Fields, Julia Virkus, and Edward Eroe, who also has been the coordinator of the event for the Birchleggings Club and as an Outreach Ride for the Twin Cities Bicycle Club. Special thanks to Tim Rand who co-led the ride.

Riders started in Wayzata, Mound, St. Bonifacius, and Mayer and all arrived in Lester Prairie for a delicious buffet lunch at the Central Cafe, also known as Mary Kay's Bitchin' Kitchen. Mary Kay served several different sandwiches, corn soup, chips, and desert. She has been running the restaurant for breakfast and lunch 6 days a week for 18 years and is known for making everything herself. Since the Dakota Trail was completed to Lester Prairie it has become a favorite stop for riders as well as folks living in town and coming from out of town.

The weather was cloudy and humid, and we did run into a brief shower west of St. Bonifacius, but otherwise a very comfortable and dry day.

A little history of the trail from Wikipedia: The Dakota Trail is on part of the former track bed of the Hutchinson Spur of the Great Northern Railway which was used to bring wheat and raw materials from Central Minnesota to the flour mills, factories and warehouses in Minneapolis from 1885 until 2001. The railway line was also designed to bring tourists to the communities on Lake Minnetonka in the late 1880s.

The line was charted in 1885 by James J Hill, and the St. Paul and Pacific Railway, later Great Northern merged with Northern Pacific Railway, which formed the Burlington Northern Railroad. Burlington Northern sold the line to Dakota Rail in 1985, where it operated both freight and dinner trains. In 1995, RailAmerica purchased Dakota Rail. The last train left Hutchinson in 2001, when the line was abandoned. It was purchased by Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority, Carver County and McLeod County.

In 2008, the Three Rivers Park District began building the Dakota Rail Trail in Hennepin County. It was completed from Wayzata to St. Bonifacius in July 2009. In early 2010, Carver County began construction of the section from St. Bonifacius to Mayer. The first trail section ran 7 miles. It officially opened on May 21, 2011. Carver County extended the trail in 2012 from Mayer, west through New Germany to the Carver/McLeod County Line. The second section runs for 5.5 miles.

The trail was gravel only out to Lester Prairie and in 2017, McLeod County accepted a Legacy Grant to fund paving of the trail from the end of the pavement at the Carver County border to McLeod County Road 1 on the west side of Lester Prairie. The trail was paved through the city in 2019. The former railroad property runs west to Hutchinson, but plans are not known at this time for the future trail development west of Lester Prairie.

Two major railroad bridges in Lake Minnetonka were preserved for the trail. The largest one is the Arcola Trestle, built in 1881. It is 550 feetlong. It consists of several spans of trestles with two through plate girder sections. A similar bridge is the Seton Channel Bridge in Spring Park, passing over Seton Channel. This one is 215 feet long.

In m opinion, the Dakota Trail is one of the most beautiful trails in the Midwest. It has a lush canopy and there are several scenic spots to take photos. There are also several places to stop and eat with another favorite being the Minnetonka Drive In in Spring Park, which is right off the trail and is a former A&W that still has great root beer and floats.

All the photos from the ride can be found at the Birchleggings Club Facebook Page at this link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1860324638751995&type=3 Thanks to Doug Forster for many of the photographs.

Submitted by: Edward Eroe, Birchleggings Club Board Member and Twin Cities Bicycle Club Ride Leader.