Cycling around Lake Conroe & Sam Houston Forest - Does my route look ok?
Hi. I am planning a ride starting in Willis heading west on FM 1097 over Lake Conroe and looping back east through Sam Houston National Forest. My planned route can be seen on Google maps here:
There are 2 roads I'm unsure of in particular such as 'Mt. Pleasant Rd.' off of FM 1097 and 'Forest Service Road 237/Osborn Rd.' off of FM 149. Just wondering if any fellow BF members cycle these roads or any of the others on my planned route? Anything I should know about in advance? Road construction or other hazards?
I grew up in the Woodlands area, but I've been living in Clear Lake over 13 years now, so it's been a really long time since I've been up in the Lake Conroe area.
For anyone interested, I did this ride today. It was a great ride, however Tx-Dot was wrong when they said there was no construction on my route. The only construction zone I hit was on FM 1375. The road isn't closed or anything, but there's a stretch of about 3-4 miles with really rough roads and signs up saying "Loose Gravel". You can ride over it, but it was not comfortable on 700x23 tires. Otherwise, Mt. Pleasant Road and Osborn Rd which I was concerned about not being paved are in fact paved and have fantastic scenery. If you're going alone, I would recommend some type of mirror and a flashing red light on the back of your bike because several of the roads were narrow with no real shoulder. Thankfully I got started early and traffic was mostly light all day once I peeled off of FM 1097.
I normally track my rides with the GPS on my phone, but it started roaming a little ways into the ride, so I just turned it off. The route map can be seen again on Google:
The bad pavement is called "chip and seal". If you wear dentures they will fall out. TXdot thinks this re-surfaces a road but not if you are on a bicycle.
Rick
Texbiker.net
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Cycling around Lake Conroe & Sam Houston Forest - Does my route look ok?
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