Drinking and biking

Believe it or not, you can legally drive drunk in Minnesota if you're riding a bicycle, as long as you don't do something stupid, like plow directly into a police car--as a friend of a friend did recently, and was charged with careless driving under MN Statute 169.13. If you're steering 16 people on one giant human-powered vehicle, however, no one will insure you if you're also drinking alcohol. Which is why the new local, Netherlands-style cafe-on-wheels PedalPub (www.pedalpub.com) provides a (sober) driver to groups of up to 16 riders, who then power the cycle with their feet while seated at an open-air bar. "Bar" might be a slight misnomer: Riders can drink on the vehicle, but only while on private property, and with the property owner's permission. But for $150 per hour, PedalPub provides pub-crawl tours of Nordeast, Lake Calhoun, and other neighborhoods. The whole thing is more expensive than renting individual bikes, but cheaper than a limo or party bus, and healthier, too. The main thing riders should worry about: making it over that last hill.