ROSE FAMILY JOURNAL

In many ways, Indianapolis is one of the best cities to check out by bike. When we lived in Indianapolis and worked in an office, we were dedicated bike commuters between Broad Ripple and downtown via the Monon Trail.

There are many dedicated bike trails around the city, so you do not have to worry about the stress of sharing the road with cars. Also, Indianapolis is very flat, so there is not really anywhere that you might get stuck with a massive incline.

This route became a favorite of ours after exploring the different bike trails within the city, and we realized we could do an entire loop without having to turn around and re-trace our route back home. In total, the route is about 20.5 miles long. Another variation of this is to ride your bike down to Fountain Square. If you do this, and you don’t feel up to pedaling all the back to Broad Ripple, you can hop on the Red Line bus and take a quick trip back to where you started!

For this map, I used a few destinations you pass in the route to create the entire loop, but you do not need to stop at each spot. There are wonderful places to stop — including the lawn around Butler University, the gardens of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Zoo and downtown Canal area, restaurants and shops along Mass Ave., or parks along the Monon Trail. You are on a dedicated trail for nearly the entire loop. One area where you may need to stop and pull up where to go on your phone would be around 10th street and the hospital. The trail you are on ends, and you take a short ride along 10th street to get to the next dedicated trail back next to the canal. Here is a screenshot of the loop, but this link will take you to the directions on Google Maps directly. I chose to start at BRICS (a great ice cream shop!), but there are plenty of places to park in Broad Ripple. As long as you’re not trying to get going in the evenings on the weekend, you should have no issue finding a place to park (if that’s how you’re starting).

While you’re in Indianapolis, check out our recommendations for restaurants!