Texas Biking Overview

How can you mountain bike without mountains? Of course, first off, western Texas is fairly cragged and canyony. Second off, even plainsy Austin has some bike trails so challenging that they serve as a kind of biking benchmark. Texas has quite a few hubs for the mountain biker, and quite a few remarkably intense routes as well as some gentler runs for newer bikers. And every region has a little of both, with its own particular flavor.

Destinations to consider are grouped below by region. For detailed information, follow the links to any biking destination that interests you.

Biking in Big Bend Country - Texas

The desert heat translates into hot, dusty, difficult rides. El Paso is surrounded by miles and miles of intense, technical climbs up mountains and down rocky drops, for this may be desert, but it's high, rough desert. Beginners will find some stretches of desert flat that aren't quite so intimidating.

Big Bend National Park has some technically gentler rides, but it's a large park and trails can be on the same vast scale. Wherever you're biking in the Basin, be prepared with a lot of water and a lot of endurance and a little chutzpah for the trickier parts.

Biking in Panhandle Plains - Texas

Amarillo is near some of the "anomalies" of the Great Plains, and bikers can be as likely to curse as to love such sites as Capitol Peak, Caprock Canyon, and Palo Duro Canyon. This is where the Great Plains start sliding into desert and the terrain scatters with sand and prickly pear.

San Angelo bike trails have a similar cacti borderland feel, in the Panhandle as they are. These trails also tend toward the long, grueling, and tricky. Really, who says the Plains are boring?

Biking in Hill Country - Texas

Sometimes, you may find yourself sharing the trails with cows as well as other bikers, but the Hill Country has a surprising variety of trails. Not that Austin's trails have much in the way of cows, but they're often well-loved, well-trafficked greenways where the pedestrians have the right of way. The trails are usually worth it for all the crowds and one ride, the famous Emma Long Metro Park, is so scarily tough that bikers brag about riding it.

In the less populated Hill Country, cows may be more a possibility, but the trails remain wooded and lovely and maybe a little less crowded. The workout is often no less intense.

Biking in Prairies and Lakes - Texas

Dallas trails are more weekend warrior friendly than grueling, although many trails have tough elements or loops made for more advanced riders. The trails tend to be swift, the riding excitement sometimes as much due to watching all those trees whoosh past as conquering a technical section of trail. Dallas has its benchmark, too, though, the murderously difficult Juniper Point.

Waco follows that same basic trail style of a Lowland trail; trees, plenty of water, be they creek or lake, and often friendly to many skill levels.

Conversely, Fort Worth can be a little scarier as a general rule, but still green and wet, with the occasional surprise cactus. Check out the hairy trails at Cleburne State Park and the less hairy, but more popular and fun Breaks at Bar H.

Biking in Piney Woods - Texas

The Piney Woods is, in some ways, not as intense a biking experience as other parts of Texas, but it does have its long leg-burn of a trail or two. Even these leg-burns, mind, tend to be rather gentle, more endurance tests than technical challenges.

Biking in Gulf Coast - Texas

Like the trails at the western end of the Great Plains, Gulf trails can wind through mesquite and sand, but that sand is often coastal sand. And those trails often wind through, not mesquite, not gently rolling hills, but bayou swampland and dense, piney forest. The trails around Houston tend to be pretty mellow, difficulty-wise, but bikers are still advised not to jump the alligators. Bikers starving to catch air would be better advised to visit the popular Anthills.

Another route with less air and more tough and nasty is near Galveston, the rooty and exhausting Jack Brooks County Park.

Biking in South Plains - Texas

On the borderlands between Hill Country and South Texas Plains as it is, San Antonio is a little of both, or, at least, has access to both. Its own rugged Government Canyon is a brutal canyon-scape of ups and downs, if it also borders more casually rolling trails.

Laredo is a different kind of borderland, though, the border between the United States and Mexico. This is all unapologetic cacti and mesquite, Texas brush country at its purest. Bikers enjoy, bikers beware. No one likes a spine in their tire.

Texas Biking Search

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