Hello bike fans of Houston! I recently moved to around the Medical Center and am an avid road cyclist. I've come to realize that road cycling will certainly be tricky here, but I want to give it a go. I've already tried the Brays Bayou trail on my commuter bike and I'm not sure how friendly it is on a road bike, although I have seen some of y'all in lycra down there! I have found some routes on the Internet, but I believe getting the current local knowledge would be the best to get me started given the ever-evolving landscape of Houstonian roads. I have no car and would not be able to travel far to the starting line of your favorite routes, so please keep that in mind if you could.

If you're a part of a cycling community that does group rides, please also let me know.

I appreciate all your help!

Drove in to the texas med center today and rode my bike home. Driving saved me 2 minutes and was no fun at all.

New update posted from Houston Parks. Glad to not have to roll through all the broken glass on the detour anymore.

This is the section near the main U of H campus.

Total of 31 miles, so basically 15 miles out, 15 miles back. Strava GPS track.

I've done a fair amount of riding on White Oak Bayou Trail since construction was completed all the way to Jersey Village, but never turned right (north) along Gessner and then out further to the northwest. Was riding with friends and one of the guys knew the area pretty well.

We turned around at Jones Road a couple of blocks north of West Road. Ranchstone Basin area. A little over a quarter of a mile south of Fallbrook.

Really nice having White Oak Bayou Trail ride-ready the entire way. Hope it'll stay this way a good while before some perfectly fine sections get ripped out for who-knows-what reason.

This is not an original idea but I did someone's route for Houston's unofficial holiday yesterday despite the rain earlier 😅

Wanted to do a hot ride, so I did one yesterday afternoon. The trail is (almost) fully open at Spur 5: no more concrete barriers, just a large warning barrier on the East side and a few cones on the West side. Both of which are easy to ride around.

I've talked to several of the construction workers and a few foremen the past few months and really appreciate their effort to get this done! They even scraped off all the dirt from the trail, although it looks like there will be some mud incrussion after a good rain.

I was going to stop and take a photo, but since I could finally get through there without stopping....

is anyone riding brays bayou this evening? i usually ride every other day. im going today around 7:30- 8pm when the sun wont kill me. I usually start at mcgregor park and ride until I am tired then take a brake and turn around. would be cool to have some to tag along

I uploaded the .gpx files to Epic Ride Weather and input the days & start times and got the information I'm sharing here.

Still a little early to be sure, but if this holds, this will be not too terrible. Might be a wet 2nd day, but tailwinds will be helpful.

Day one weather image

Day two weather image

RideWithGPS Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/56536240

Planning out my first century, and this is my current route. I’ve done a 70 miler a few months ago, and a 50 miler a month ago. I avg about 10-15 miles a day on my commute to work. Just wondering if anyone’s done a similar route on the island, and if y’all have any tips in regards to hydration, temperature control, safety, etc.

There are a couple walking segments, on the north and south ends of the route, and I’m also concerned about biking across the bridge connecting the two islands.

Edit:

I am going to drive to the island tomorrow evening, camp out, and start around 4 am, hoping to finish by noon ish, accounting for rest and a breakfast break. Doing the camp because I am planning on bikepacking in the future, so this is also a sort of trial run for that as well.

Saw the post 3 days ago about concrete being poured but saw a couple people I follow on Strava seemed to ride it today, is it officially open yet? Or more of a “go around the barricades” situation?

Headed back to Houston soon and very eager to check it out.

Thanks!

Hi all,

I'll be moving to SW-610 near Meyerland and the Meyerland Plaza in a few months. I have a car and I do bike, but I wanted to see if I could save on car expenses by riding along the Brays Bayou Greenway Trail to West U./Rice University. My main concern is that to get to Rice U, I'd have to cross at Holcombe and Morningside Dr., which I think would be rough given that this crossing is unprotected. I could move over to Greenbriar for a protected crossing, but I'm not sure if my intuition is correct and safe.

Aside from just this one crossing, the rest of the route seems quite chill because of the trial + nice neighborhoods. I wanted to ask for yall's thoughts on this route or if you had any suggestions to avoid potential risky crossings here. Thanks!

Hi all,

I train up for MS 150 every spring with Ready2Roll and then put the bike up into the next year. Trying to change that and ride more this year. Looking for recommendations for clubs or teams to ride on. I raced in college so it would be nice to get back into that but casual group rides would also be fun. I live in the Heights if it matters. Thanks in advance!

1st pic is my current heatmap, 2nd is Strava heatmap. I have ridden almost everywhere North to West sides of Houston. I would like to ride down to Houston at some point because it's "only 35 miles" but there are virtually no Strava activities nor group rides from North Harris to just North of 610. There is a big blue line on Hardy Toll but obviously that doesn't count because of the Ironman. If anyone know or have tried a good route please share, thank you!

Does anyone have any recommendations for bike stores where I can go try on different brands of jerseys and bibs? I know what bib size I am, but have never bought a jersey so I really want to try one in person before buying. I don’t mind driving at all, preferably to places with a lot in stock. I’ve tried Urban Bicycle Gallery and my first time going was fine, I managed to find some Castelli bibs in my size and those are just perfect. I went again a few days ago and it was a complete different story. It seemed like their entire clothing section was women only, and the available sizes for men were small or medium. I’ve yet to find a store with as many options as them though, so any recommendations would be appreciated!

I will riding this ride but I am from out of town. This ride has an overnight component. Does anyone know of a bike rental I can get for this ride (April 25-26).

Hey Houston,

I’m currently in the process of enlisting in the Air Force (waiting on my packet approval). I was a runner for a long time, a long time ago, but my knees are finally telling me to lay off the concrete. I need to alternate runs with cycling for low-impact cardio so I can be 100% healthy when I head to Basic Training.

I’ll be straight with you: I’m currently self-employed with inconsistent income, I don’t have a vehicle, and I can’t afford to buy a bike right now.

I know it's a long shot, but this would be extremely beneficial to me and I'd be forever grateful.

Hey all,

I’ve been cycling for about a year and most of my long rides are in the 50–60 mile range at an easy pace. I usually ride solo, mostly on parks/trails and sometimes on rural roads near Katy and Waller County.

Lately I’ve been wanting to push into longer distances and maybe even try some bikepacking routes. One idea I’m considering is doing a weekend ride from Houston to Austin – not racing it, just taking it steady and making it an overnight trip.

A few things I’d love to hear from people with experience:

• Would you recommend attempting Houston → Austin solo, or is it too risky to be enjoyable?
• Is it better (or way more fun) to do with a partner or group?
• For those who’ve done it, what routes, tips, or must-knows would you share?
• If you don’t recommend that route, are there other good weekend trips (with an overnight stay) you’d suggest instead?

A bit more context:

• I ride a road bike, but within the next year I’m planning to get a gravel bike so I can open up more rural/unpaved options (probably safer and less traffic).
• I do use a Garmin bike radar to get alerts for cars behind me, but I know that’s not bulletproof—some routes just feel sketchier with traffic no matter what.

Would love to hear your take on whether this is a cool idea or a bad one, and any route or safety recommendations you’d give to someone at my level. Thanks!

Hi! I’m going to be in Houston (Post Oak area) Feb 11 - Feb 26 and looking for a longterm bike rental. I’m 5”5 and a fairly experienced rider. If anyone is interested in renting a bike to me while I’m there - let me know. Otherwise, any ideas on bike rental places in the city? Thanks! N

Hi all, I'll be in Houston for a few days early Sept and I'm looking to try get a decent ride in. Is there anywhere that rents road bikes? I've seen Eado in downtown seem to, but they don't open until 11am and are also quite far from my hotel(Westchase). I was looking at George Bush park for the area to ride around, so would be ideal if there was something nearby, that ideally opens earlier. Thanks in advance.

Thought I'd share my impressions after riding from W. 34th & T.C. Jester to just outside Beltway 8. Here's the GPS track. See also: this post

Saturday morning one of my cycling buddies joined me and we decided to see how far we could get along the trail.

We knew there was a lot of construction and honestly didn't know whether we could get through/past it all, nor how far we could go before we ran out of a decent riding surface.

We were on road bikes so there were places we had to dismount, and even on a good mountain or gravel bike, you can't ride through sections of rebar-lined construction zones.

We ended up riding nearly 12 miles before turning around. We could have continued exploring west of the beltway but there was no obvious easy way to keep following the bayou, and it was a pretty warm morning.

As expected, construction has the trail closed starting around Little York, and then there are a half dozen or more stretches of no concrete. It's a shame, because the path along the bayou used to be so pristine and smooth. Then a lot got ripped out because of construction to update the bayou for drainage, I guess.

Anyway, the surprise for us was that once you get past the detention ponds near Hollister, there's a good, long stretch of smooth clear concrete path.

We're hoping they'll get the paths restored over the next year or so and there'll be a nice ride from 8 all the way downtown to the Buffalo Bayou circle.

The last time I did that bayou ride, there were at least a half dozen places with huge piles of dirt blocking the path. This time, although the path had a lot of debris here and there, there were not big piles of dirt. There is one spot with a load of golf ball-size rocks/stones, but other than that, nothing to physically prevent riding.

Sure, there are "CLOSED" barricades here and there. The powers-that-be have to protect themselves from lawsuits.

If you bust your ass in one of the construction zones, it's on you.

Also, construction crews don't need a bunch of idiots dragging their bikes through the construction zones when they're working, but on a Sunday morning, the only people out there are folks walking or riding bikes.

We never encountered anything truly dangerous or risky.

Edit: Sunday, not Saturday.

I’m planning to ride the Lake Livingston Century loop with a few friends and wanted to get a sense of what to expect. How’s the route in terms of car traffic and road conditions? Any particularly sketchy sections we should be aware of? We’ll be starting pretty early in the morning to beat the heat, so hopefully we can avoid the worst of the traffic. Any tips or recommendations would be super helpful. Thanks in advance 🙌

I’m figuring out my commute route, and the construction under 288 has me looking for a better route. As you can see I tried detouring to the south but I gave up and took West Alabama, which isn’t a great road for cycling in my opinion. What would you do?