It's Minneapolis Bike Walk Week, if you can stand the heat

Get out of your car this week, but stay in the shade!

Here's some unfortunate timing: Minneapolis Bike Walk Week just happens to coincide with this morning's Excessive Heat Warning. But at least Bike To Work Day comes Thursday, by which time the tropical heat should have abated.

Bike riders melting into little puddles of salty goo don't make for great PR -- or converts to pedal power when they're used to air conditioned cars and lattes.

But that shouldn't stop you from getting out there, because this is really just a great excuse to stop by the beaches, lakes, creeks and parks that always seem out of reach because you can't find anywhere close enough to them to park.

thirteen of clubs/flickr

It'll be a great week for a ride.

Bike Walk Week -- they want to promote walking as well as pedaling -- actually got started Saturday with the The American Heart Association's Heart Walk at Target Field. And the event was promoted at Grand Old Days in St. Paul on Sunday.

June 8 is "Women's Wednesday" [registration form is here].

June 9, Thursday, is Bike Walk To Work Day. Coffee and snacks (and something cold to drink, we're sure of it) will be served from 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza in downtown Minneapolis, and in St. Paul's Rice Park. Later, REI Bloomington is hosting a post ride gathering from 4:30 p.m. - 6:30pm.

More events are planned for next weekend: Mass yoga on the Midtown Greenway, and the opening of the Riverlake Greenway on Saturday.

On Sunday, a two-mile stretch of Lyndale Avenue South is going to be blocked off for the first ever Minneapolis Open Streets celebration -- cyclists and pedestrians only! And it's also Bike Walk to the Ballgame day, to watch the Twins play the Texas Rangers. [Click here for details.]