I do a lot of biking in my free time. Whether I’m riding on roads or mountain bike trails I always have my Glock 30SF on my hip. Concealing a weapon while riding a biking isn’t very easy, I make the half-assed attempt by pulling my shirt over the Serpa holster I carry the gun in but needless to say people notice it once in a while and then they ask why I feel the need to carry a gun while biking. This is why:
This morning, journalist Jeremy Iggers was one of at least three victims violently attacked by six young thugs on the Midtown Greenway, a walking/biking path that runs through an old railroad right-of-way a couple blocks off of Lake Street.
Iggers and another biker were hit by thrown rocks; the other biker was beaten, and a third was robbed (it’s not clear if he was also injured). He writes about it here:
The Greenway has long been a favorite location for muggers, and it’s little wonder. The Greenway is a convenient conduit that brings innocent victims directly to criminal actors, in a straight-line tunnel with few or no avenues of escape, in the convenience of their own neighborhoods.
I end up using the Greenway periodically as it’s the quickest bike trail between my home and many parts of Minneapolis. There are numerous blind spots where attackers can get the jump on bikers. The Minneapolis Police Department supposedly has cops on bikes patrolling the Greenway but I’ve never actually seen one so I believe that claim almost as much as I believe claims of unicorns existing. For the most part those on biking trails are on their own. You can’t always avoid danger but you can equip yourself to have a better chance of surviving it.
Concealing a firearm while you’re riding a bike isn’t easy but, so long as you have a carry permit, Minnesota is an open and concealed carry state. If you ride a bike, have a carry permit, and want to carry a firearm, and aren’t doing so because you can’t figure out a good method of concealing the firearm don’t worry about it and carry your firearm. It’s better to potentially make others on the trail uncomfortable than to face multiple violent thugs unarmed.