We are heading to the Mayo clinic in Rochester Minnesota next weekend. We fly to Minneapolis/St. Paul on Saturday afternoon and have all day Sunday and Tuesday afternoon before coming home.
My son and I would like to hit any interesting bike shops we can find. We’re mainly roadies (he exclusively, me track/TT/du - decided I hated swimming after doing worlds in 92) and interested in shops with different things.
Any suggestions? Directions would be helpful too. I’ll buy a map this week and my wife is a good navigator but none of us has been to the area before.
I’m on my way out the door, right now, but can reply later if you can elaborate on what exactly you mean by “different”? Hope it’s nothing serious that you’re heading down to the Mayo for…
I actually live across the street from Grand Performance, and work at another MPLS bike shop (I wish I could recommend it…but not really if you’re big into road/tri/track stuff…talk about hyrbid city…). Grand Performance is cool, but really small. They have some cool stuff, though - Bianchi, Scott, Orbea, little Salsa. Gear West is definitely a great shop. I think they call it the “Midwest’s Biggest Tri Outfitter”. They’re out at a lot of races around here. They carry some pretty high-end cool stuff. I don’t know a whole lot about Flanders…I’ve heard a few things, but not really enough to have any idea about what’s there. Same thing about Hollywood - I think he does a lot of custom work. I would recommend stopping at Gear West. Hope this helps!
Yes, I would absolutely see that one, definitely over Gear West (both are on the west side of the cities), if you are looking for “different”. I agree with what was said about the shops already listed.