Houston Half Century

In which the author rides around Houston on bike trails for 50 miles and takes a lot of photos.

Houston, Texas is not known for being one of America’s bike-friendliest cities; it struggles to reach “bike-neutral” on a good day. Hell, it’s not even really “car friendly.” Houston drivers are notoriously hostile toward—or oblivious of—any other moving thing on or near the road, and spend more than their fair share of time driving drunk. When I moved here, I spotted a thread on the r/houston subreddit asking “What items have you had thrown at you during road rage incidents?” (Responses included loose change, a measuring tape, and a snow cone.)

A person I met at a party soon after arriving in town told me that Houstonians frown on public transportation and that “we don’t really like cyclists here.” Or maybe it was pedestrians. Or both. In any case, the feeling was mutual, but I was also left wondering what risks I would have to take to stay in reasonable shape in this car-happy, road-ragey, drunk-drivey town.

It’s a challenge, but H-town does have one big thing going for it in the bike department—a semi-connected system of paved trails following the city’s bayous. If you’re at all familiar with Houston, you may have read this well-worn quotation from a 2004 article by Hunter S. Thompson:

Houston is a cruel, crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It’s a shabby, sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West – which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Thompson’s “filthy river” is Buffalo Bayou, where I ride my bike a few times a week. The Houston area is threaded by a network of such creeks and small rivers, or “bayous,” that serve to drain the flood-prone city as long as it hasn’t been raining too much that week. Their sluggish waters merge into Buffalo Bayou, oozing opaquely through downtown Houston before draining into the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay. The confluence of Buffalo and White Oak bayous (later dubbed “Allen’s Landing” by chamber-of-commerce types) was the site of the city’s founding in 1836.

In the 2010s, Houston launched an ambitious program to build 150 miles of trails along the city’s bayous, which had previously been regarded as little more than big, ugly drainage ditches. The happy result is that it’s now possible for cyclists to get a good ride in on the weekend without too much fear of inspiring yet another ghost bike.

So it seems like I moved to Houston at the dawn of something of a new era for cyclists. It’s mid-February, 2020, I’ve just signed up for next weekend’s Houston Randonneurs 200k brevet, and my fitness level feels shaky at best; the weather hasn’t been great and my 50-year-old leg muscles start to atrophy after only a week off the bike.

As a randonneur, my go-to training option for the past few years has been RUSA’s permanents program. (A permanent is a fixed route that can be ridden at any time for RUSA credit and counts toward randonneuring awards like the R-12, P-12, K-Hound, and Mondial among others.)

For the past several months, however, permanents have been put on hold due to difficulty securing insurance coverage, so that’s not an option. Today, instead of riding one of Houston’s established RUSA permanent routes for no credit or driving out into the country, I decide to get in a long-ish maintenance ride on some of the city’s major bayous: Bray’s, White Oak, and Buffalo.

I fuel up on an apple fritter and breakfast taco from my favorite donut shop, then hit the road, pitting my precious “extralight” René Herse tires against the potholes and broken glass of Houston’s city streets as I make my way south to Hermann Park. Once there, I round the park on a gravel trail beneath a canopy of mossy live oaks.

Passing through a tunnel beneath MacGregor Drive, I pop out onto the Bray’s Bayou Greenway near Bill Coates bridge, one of Houston’s largest and most distinctive pedestrian bridges.

Pedaling east beneath the bridge, I encounter and then ignore a confusing pair of signs.

Like many of Houston’s bayous, much of Bray’s was straightened and paved in the mid-twentieth century in a misguided attempt to help it drain the city more efficiently. Current, more enlightened flood control projects eschew bayou-paving and include features like wetlands and retention ponds.

Soon after passing the University of Houston’s main campus, the trail passes beneath train tracks leading into the BNSF Railway’s Houston South Yard. I pause to snap a photo of some stopped cars before moving on.

The trail soon crosses Lawndale Street, and I confidently breeze past another warning sign.

Bad idea.

One of Houston’s many golf courses borders the trail to the north here, so I start cutting across it on foot to reach the far side of the closed bridge. I cross the reeking slough on a small wooden bridge for golf carts; the far bank is lined with discarded cups and other floating trash.

Soon after crossing the course and finding the trail again, I see a big, rough-looking stray dog nosing around. I’m wary, but he runs away with a limp as I approach. Poor old guy.

Past the golf course and across Harrisburg Blvd., the neighborhoods start to get a bit rougher.

A few wrong turns later, I find the Harrisburg Hike and Bike Trail. An artist has depicted Santa Muerte (or the grim reaper) in spray paint on the back of a house. A Ouija board and a print of a drinking skeleton are just visible in the window.

The Harrisburg trail ends at Commerce Street, requiring some riding on surface roads through downtown. I pass a large homeless encampment under I-69, then roll by Minute Maid Park.

After a quick crossing of downtown Houston—mostly deserted on this weekend day—I hop onto the White Oak Bayou Greenway. A few miles down the trail, I take the right fork to the Heights Hike and Bike Trail, then reconnect with White Oak Bayou after an exploratory detour on Houston Avenue. From this point, the trail follows the bayou for thirteen miles to the northwest.

Like Bray’s, much of White Oak Bayou is entombed in concrete. Still, there are signs of life; in places, the banks are thick with early spring wildflowers.

A Cooper’s hawk perches on a pipeline crossing the stream.

There are bluebonnets.

There is art here too—elaborate murals cover the back of a strip mall.

Nearing the end of the trail, I buy a donut, sausage kolache, and orange juice from the drive-thru window of a run-down Shipley’s. I enjoy my small picnic on a bench facing the stream, then continue.

The pavement ends near Hollister Basin, a large stormwater control feature. I turn to head back downtown, facing a light headwind and slowing a bit. Approaching central Houston, I take the Heights trail to White Oak Drive, re-joining the White Oak Bayou bike trail at Stude Park, with its large red “Houston” sculpture by Mac Whitney.

Between Stude Park and downtown, elevated freeways soar above the heavy growth of wildflowers bordering the bayou.

Across White Oak Bayou from UH Downtown, a man is painting a giant alligator on a wall.

Passing UH Downtown, I turn right onto Buffalo Bayou. Here, the trail snakes below the many street and highway bridges crossing the bayou as it flows through downtown Houston. (The video below was filmed from the opposite direction on another ride, but you get the idea.)

A few miles upstream on Buffalo Bayou, taking extra care around the wobbly weekend packs of BCycle riders, and I’m back near my Montrose apartment. I’m feeling satisfied with my local adventure and decide to call it a day. I could throw in a few loops around Memorial Park to make the ride a full hundred kilometers, but it’s time to feed and walk the dogs and fifty miles is a nice round number too.