lonestarcyclist

I live and ride in Houston, as much as I hate to do both. I used to live in Austin where I rode every day and most cars made room for ME to ride on the street.

Back to Houston, yes it is very hard to ride in the so called designated bike lanes as there is always construction occuring along these routes. Yes there is glass over most roads, even in the nicer parts of town. Drivers sure think that it's their right to honk and yell obscenities at me while I ride. Most roads are in piss poor condition I have a hard time driving down them in my Wrangler much less on my road bike. I have ridden through Downtown, but only on the weekends, which helps to add miles to my ride as I have to circumvent the construction on in order to bless us with a light rail system that will be of no benefit to anyone along the route it is being built on.

I mostly ride out by Lake Houston, in Humble, or in the Dairy-Ashford/Memorial area. Sometimes I hit the Memorial Park loop to work on cadence and sprinting. I stay off of the streets as much as I can, but that means that I have to utilize hike/bike paths where there are people that are more dangerous to me than the cars on the road. What with their walking four people across the path, or dogs running wild off of the leash, or children who do their best to move but in the path that I am trying to carve.

Then there is the poor air quality, which is tainted not only with smog and also the stench of so many drivers smoking in their cars. the weather is indeed hot and humid, but I have become acclimated and even though I should not, I do ride in the middle of the day during the summer. Others however cannot survive just walking outside to get the mail in some of the worst weather much less try to ride their bike.

I've had cigarette butts thrown at me, bottles thrown down and shattered in my path, and even car doors opened on me. Yet I still persevere. I do so only because I love this sport of ours so darn much.

You won't see a cyclist out and about unless you are in the right part of town. During the day there are a slew of bike messengers navigating downtown, or a ton of cyclists out at Memorial Park. You'll find a few cyclists on the farm roads outside of town but also a bunch out in the Clear Lake/NASA area.

So no, it is not easy to be a cyclist in Houston, although we do try.