Dallas Bike Trail Review May 2010
You might be surprised how many bike trails are in and around Dallas, Texas.
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And you might be even more surprised how hard it is to find it all on a google search. Spent couple hours on it this morning just looking for one silly trail that was hard to find on a map - it seemed like it should have been easier...hence, this blog.
Why the emphasis on trails?. I've been hit by a car once, and another time missed so close that it scared the beheckers out of me. Both times were on "safe" neighborhood streets in plain daylight. Ride on a trail. My own personal circuit is 36 miles and I share very little of it with cars.
What follows is an aggregation of the various sources that might help you find trailsf faster, if you are ever in the same situation as me this morning.
Dallas Parks Dept
Ignored this map when I first landed there, because it made no sense to me. Too small to see anything helpful. But then I realized it works great - you just have to mouse over the map and click on related maps. Or, just go to the individual related maps - also listed below. Very helpful.
BikingInDallas site:
Couple of enthusiasts built this really nice site, looks like they have their own trail listing. Try this list here, even if it's probably got a lot of duplications of other sites.
Trinity River Corridor
This should be a whole ton of stuff eventually, right now it's just this one lame graphic. Feel free to send me any better stuff to post here if you find it.
LiveStrong site
Like my own circuit, the livestrong.com site has all kinds of routes already plotted out for you. Stores where you live and shows you routes near you.
Google Maps!
Map your own route on google maps. This is so way cool, I had to blog about it earlier this year. Recommended! Especially helpful if you have a close by bike trail you ride, but also want to plot a route on side streets to get to that trail.
Dallas Off-Road Bicycling Association
This is a different kind of enthusiast - off roads bikes are a completely different way to have fun. This is an exhaustive place to find all those trails
BikeDFW.org
BikeDFW is an aggregation site that is much wider in coverage than just Dallas. It has links to many separate suburban DFW cities, and each of their own trail maps. Here is their trail listing
Curious About Urban Center Improvements?
This was what I was looking for when I got started on this quest. It's called by various names. Hooks up downtown Dallas to White Rock. While I was looking also found that Katy trail is being extended to White Rock too.
Conclusion
If you want to ride your bike and not get run over by someone too busy talking on a cell phone to see you, you can find a place in the Dallas area to do just that.
