Tour Of Saints Still Going Strong After 40 Years

ST. JOSEPH (WJON News) -- It was a great day for a bike ride in St. Joseph on Sunday. The annual Tour of Saints took place with three different lengths to choose from to see the city and surrounding area.

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Over 800 people took part in the tour which has been taking place for over 40 years. Bike MN organizes the event each year and Engagement Manager Ted Duepner says they want to show off the city and what it has to offer:

"One of the indirect benefits of like having these rides in town is we want people to like you know spend time in these communities, spend some money in these communities, and the Tour of Saints I think does that almost the best of any of our other rides because you can actually stay at St. Ben's the night before."

Duepner says what makes the tour special is the treats they have along the way:

"We've got some really great community partners here in Cold Spring Bakery, Collegeville Orchards, our finish this year is going to be at Bad Habit Brewing and we've got just a number of amazing volunteers who kind of help put those on and sponsors who really step up to making it a special experience for the riders who participate."

Volunteer Coordinator Kay Lemke has been helping with the event for over 20 years. She says most years things run pretty smoothly but this year did offer a new challenge:

"And when I got here today everything was different compared to what we had looked at two months ago when we were here. It had been over at the Haehn Center and we had that down to a science. This year it's the same route basically riding but the setup is different because the start is now at the Athletic Complex this year."

The route lengths were 18, 35, and 50 miles and all ended at Bad Habit Brewery for the post-tour party. The tour has had several homes over the years first starting out at St. John's, and then Cold Spring before moving to St. Joseph about 20 years ago.

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