Texas - Option for exploring near The Colony in Dallas

I am visiting Dallas and will staying with family who live in The Colony. I will have my folding bike with me. What are some sight-seeing options for cycling around the area? I don't mind heading downtown if I can combine it with public transportation?

Looks like you could ride from The Colony and catch DART buses on the north side of Plano.

Do you want to ride? Or want to sight-see? For riding, the most popular local trail is the White Rock Creek/ White Rock Lake trail system. That's around White Rock Lake, and then goes up to Valley View Lane just north of 635.

For sightseeing, probably downtown Dallas is as good as anywhere. You can go through the 6th floor Museum or the aquarium. The aquarium is neat, but pricy. At the 6th Floor Museum, they have metal detectors, so I'm not sure where you'd have to leave a bike. DART rail goes to the Dallas Zoo. You can ride the TRE all the way to Fort Worth if you're so inclined. The Katy Trail is nice, and goes over by the American Airlines Center.

For general road-biking, I would guess people would tend to north from The Colony rather than south, but I'm not that familiar with roads up there.

I'm not familiar with that part of the Metroplex, but I would suggest looking at bikely.com, which is basically Google Maps except you can go off road (to follow trails, etc.) to get an idea of how far a given ride might be. (There are other similar sites.)

Thanks for the tips! I think Ill bike 20 miles from The Colony to White rock trail. Looks like there are many 4 and 6 lane roads with low 30-40 mph speed limits. So I should not have a problem taking the lane on them. Or are these roads very busy all day long ( they did no appear so on google maps , street view ).

The Ill bike to downtown after the white rock trail finishes ( does it go through any bad areas I should be aware of )? Then Ill take DART back to Plano and bike the last 10 miles home. What do you think of my plan? It will probably be 60 mile trip. I am assuming it will likely be sunny or is there a rainy season?

this time of year the weather's usually pretty good but you might get a spell of cool / rainy days.

check out www.planobicycle.org (http://www.planobicycle.org), they have some rides in the area of the Colony.

also the city of Plano has bike paths that go N/S so you might use those for part of your trip. there's a map on their site somewhere.

the Superdrome (outdoor 250m wood velodrome) is in Frisco, www.superdrome.com (http://www.superdrome.com) and they will have racing every Saturday afternoon in November I think.

I do recommend White Rock Lake; it's one of the prettiest parts of Dallas and one of the country's great little-known urban parks, IMO.

Looking at the map of The Colony (its been a while since I've been up there exactly), there's really no safe way to get to the south side of 121, but if you can get to Spring Creek in one piece I'd suggest taking Headquarters over to Ohio, and taking Ohio all the way down to where it becomes Hillcrest, down past Frankford to McCallum, shoot over on McCallum to Meandering Way which will take you most of the way to the trailhead of the White Rock Creek trail.

note - taking Josey to Windhaven may appear to be a good bet, but there are some fairly serious hills (at least for around here) along Windhaven near Plano Parkway.

Thanks for the tips! I think Ill bike 20 miles from The Colony to White rock trail. Looks like there are many 4 and 6 lane roads with low 30-40 mph speed limits. So I should not have a problem taking the lane on them. Or are these roads very busy all day long ( they did no appear so on google maps , street view ).

The Ill bike to downtown after the white rock trail finishes ( does it go through any bad areas I should be aware of )? Then Ill take DART back to Plano and bike the last 10 miles home. What do you think of my plan? It will probably be 60 mile trip. I am assuming it will likely be sunny or is there a rainy season?

Veggie - where are you from? You be careful on those big streets - no one around here drives 30 or 40 mph..... maybe one of us better go with you. Thing about the DFW area - generally speaking, the farther South you go, the worse it gets. Don't worry, you're not gonna get mugged, just watch yourself when you get in the city of Dallas.