A great Spring weekend in the Texas Hill Country. Hills, rocks, cows, trails, more cows. Who could ask for more.

Having traveled in the last year to a number of very cycle-friendly places,  I've written down some thoughts on each, mostly from a transportation cyclist's perspective. To sum it up beforehand, Boulder is great and - as we often say here - Houston is not that bad!

I've listed the places in the order visited. Ok, here goes:

Provence (Cotes du Rhone) - Get your town-hoppin', wine-tastin', cheese-eatin', hill-climbin' done right here.

Village-hopping in Cotes-du-Rhone. 

Paris - Soaking in all the magnificence of this city is done best on a bike. Velib rules.

Soaking in Paris.

UK -   London had serious traffic and sh*tty weather but that didn't stop a lot of crazy English fockers from commuting in it.  The Cotswolds were made for that idyllic country ride with your best tweed, wool, and whiskey.  Edinburg had nice cycling infrastructure and lots of good beer; can't ask for more.

Serious touring duo on the streets of Edinburg.

Chicago - Chicago sucks in the winter, but in the summer it is the sweet sweetness. The path along the lake is a lot of fun. A huge mix of commuters, cruisers, geeks, sportos, motorheads, dweebs, dorks, sluts, buttheads...they all adore cycling. They think it's a righteous ride. 

Lake side path in Chicago.

Portland - Um .... We didn't bike here. Blasphemy, but bike rentals were expensive and the public transport was cheap and easy.  However, it easy to see that it has the most advanced cycling infrastructure of any large-ish American town.  Its no Copenhagen, but when it comes to hoppy beer, taco-stands, and strip clubs, Copenhagen is no Portland. 

Bike hanger on Portland's light rail.

NYC - The bikes left locked on the sidewalk here are great. The high theft rate has created an environment where only the cheapest, toughest, most rusted bikes survive on the street. Major beausage here.

Typical bike on mean streets of NYC.

Laguna Beach - Supposedly lots of good mountain biking here, but ran in to the same issue with Portland in that rentals are expensive.  No way I'm paying more to rent a bike than a car. We need to get folders.

Taiwan - A high mutation rate in bicycle design here has created an explosion of interesting utilitarian designs. A lively mix of mangey dogs, empowered pedestrians, rabid mopeds, and u-turn-lovin cars makes for some interesting rides, but it works. "Organized chaos" if I've ever seen it.

Creative lane usage in Taiwan. Mangy dog not shown.

Austin - SoCo is where its at. Keep Austin Bikey.

Boulder - Maybe a sentimental bias here because this is the first place I started cycling as a means of transport, but this is still my favorite US cycling town.  Small, fun, safe, & tons of good food and beverage. 

Los Angeles - If we could hit the reset button on this city's infrastructure, LA would be a great bikey town because of the weather and terrain.  Maybe the best. Instead its a frenzied mess of a-hole driving spread over many many square miles.  Despite this, the number of street cyclists seems to steadily increase every time I've visited over the past few years. Which is rad.

Xtracycle conversion with "One Less Prius" sticker at Silverlake market in LA.

Santa Barbara - I rolled down to the beach everyday I was here. Awesome awesomeness. This town has lots of bike paths, and bike racks too.

Rolling down the hill with beach gear in Santa Barbara.

Houston -  Having ridden almost everyday this winter to take advantage of the cooler weather, I've realized that its suprisingly a decent bike town.  Its flat and everything you need is concentrated inside the loop. It does involve some work to find good routes around town, and driver's can freak out upon seeing a bicycle on the road though, even on designated bike paths ( wtf!). Oh and the summer sucks for sure. But it works for me, and it seems to be working for a growing mass of cyclist here as well.

Sabine bridge at sunset in Houston.

Well, there you go. If there is any thread to tie this rambling list of opinions together, I'd say its that transportation cycling continues to grow. Maybe its not a fad after all.

Oh, and Bikes rule.

Google adds bike lane with latest mapping feature.

Sweet! Seems to work well in Houston; it has all the bikeway information.

Much better than having to open that big goofy Houston Bikeway PDF file.

Eiko's been bringin it for twenty-four years.

I threw some WTB Nanoraptors for shizz on the atlantis. Very fun to ride so far. It feels like it could ride anywhere, anytime. It wont win any cross races, but that's more the rider's fault than the bike's. 

This sunday's ride included a stop by Catalina's coffeeshop on Washington, my new favorite H-town coffeeshop. Since the weather was nice (perfect, actually) I decided to do some exploring on the way back and discovered the parks and trails near the Sabine St. bridge.  Its a neat little area. There's a skate park, lots of green space, and what qualifies as hills here in flatlandia. In a big city like Houston, there's always new places to discover when one ventures out a bit from the usual pathways.

Here's a quick clip from the Sabine St. Bridge. On one side is downtown, and on the other is the skate park, trails, and "hills":

just a quick sunday ride down the bayou trail. path just stopped at a wall. turned around. have to explore that area more...

Here's a refreshing drink I made up after a long ride:

Hemingway's Gatorade:

1 part coconut water

1 part sparkling water

1/2 lime

dash of sea salt.

ice

If you like all those ingredients on their own, then you'll probably find this drink quite tastey after a warm day on the bike. Its got electrolytes, vitamin C, and ... uh, H-2-0.

I don't know if Mr. Hemingway quenched his thirst with this exact drink, but I was inspired by all the limey, coconutty drinks he wrote about in Islands in the Stream. Of course, his version would certainly have at least 5 parts gin!

Nice rainy day ride in the mud at the park.  Big fun.