During the weekend, I found myself discussing some future rides multiple times, most likely because we can finally see that the light at the end of the winter-season tunnel.

I thought I’d share a couple of my favorites here, one for each distance level. I’ve shared routes for practical things like grocery stores and restaurants, but these are less destination based road rides for fun.

5-10 mile rides

Bike Path:
Short rides like this can be fairly abundant. A combinations of trails near Rangers Ballpark can add up to three miles each way.
The Fish Creek Trail in south Arlington tends to be less crowded than River Legacy Park.

20+

Bike Path:
If you’re driving to go on a ride anyway, River Legacy Park has about eight miles of trail (down and back makes it an easy 16) and hopping on the trail path that follows Green Oaks and returning to your car can turn the ride into something closer to 20 miles.
Getting there from campus can be easy. Center Street takes you the whole way and adds about nine miles to the ride (there and back.)

On the road:
On of my favorite rides is the trip to Lake Arlington. A relatively flat ride that ends in a series of hills spaced out enough to make each climb a little easier and steep enough to reach some top speeds of 30 miles an hour.

40+

Another one of my top favorite rides is to go into Fort Worth. There’s tons of ways to get there, I’ve taken an unreasonably out-of-the-way route that goes up to River Legacy then down to Randol Mill, but taking Davis Street to Randol Mill Road to Meadowbrook makes a little more sense. From there, it’s a matter of getting over to Gate Way Park to start the Trinity Trail. The link shows a way to get into downtown, but the beauty of staying on the trail is that it can and at 10 or 20 miles to your ride. Another way that I generally avoid during heavy traffic periods, but appreciate if I want the ride back to be a little shorter, is to take Lancaster Avenue most of the way. It turns into Division Street, so you’ll end up right by UTA. Another good trick if you’re pooped, is to hop on the train and take the seven mile jaunt back to UTA.