What are /r/bikehouston's favorite Products & Services?

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So I just did my first ever 100km (65miles, 106km) today because I wanted to go check out the Houston marathon. There were still a good bit of runners out there when I finally got to Memorial Dr.

Not the fastest, but certainly my longest ride.. I didn't make it as far into downtown as I would of liked, but I was worried I might need a rescue if I ventured much further into Downtown.

Anyways, here's the strava link. https://www.strava.com/activities/242923869/overview

It's a long ride to do by yourself, still haven't found anyone to ride with. That and I am ashamed of my bigboxstore bike :P

ALWAYS wear a helmet! Doesn't matter if its a quick jaunt or not!

Assume that the car did not see you.

Get some good lights (front and rear). I have the following: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DGLJWQV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DGGJGXJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Follow traffic signs/signals. Especially when riding during a busy period.

Howdy neighbor!

That's a good ride. You should be proud of attempting something that seems insane on the face of it. :)

My buddy and I rode from our neck of the woods to Discovery Green and back on Xmas day. link

I used a combination of google maps, strava heat map, and personal experience to plan the route, and it turned out to be far less insane than it sounded. :)

Having a ride partner certainly helped - as did the empty roads on Xmas morning - but the best thing was how much use we got out of the bayou trail system and bike lanes. Really, the only place we had tense interactions with traffic was along Clay road from about halfway between Eldridge to Hwy 6. We took the lane, but a few drivers didn't have very much respect for that and buzzed us at high speed.

Still, for a city with a reputation like ours seems to have, what we did should have seemed impossible. Fortunately, not only is it possible - it's only going to get better as advocacy groups like Bike Houston get involved in city planning.

Personally, I pretty much always ride around town with my friend from work. But, with just the two of us, we're much closer to a solo ride than a group ride.

We have been exploring more of the streets as part of finding and place bike tags. We tend to be pretty defensive in our riding - prefering smaller side streets to the major arteries. And when we do find ourselves needing to spend time on a major rode, we tend to stay up on the sidewalk...in truth, we don't come across a lot of pedestrians and we get out of the way for any we come across. We also take advantage of the marked bike lanes, especially in downtown.

Visibility is also key. Invest in some good bright flashing lights. I've got one of these on the back of my bike:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IO12OLO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It will run in flashing mode for several hours and is super bright, even during the day time. I've got a similar white "headlight" on my front handle bars that I keep in flashing mode as well. It runs a lot longer and the on/off is much more attention getting.

Other than that, just generally constant vigilance. Even with that, we've still had several close calls.

Bike around the bay is mostly flat. You can start in Winnie and ride to Bolivar ferry and back, with good shoulders (toss in a few miles on White Ranch Road to hit 100). https://ridewithgps.com/trips/44792508 is pretty flat and one of the Ready to Roll routes. You can start in Pattinson on the bottom of the loop. If you are in shape do the Belleville loop, or skip and head up to Pine Island. The https://www.ready2rollcycling.com/alzheimers-ride/ Alzheimer's ride is in September and is a wonderful supported ride. I hope to see you on both. And don't forget Terry Hersh- George Bush for a near by ride, or even loops in Memorial Park.

There are plenty of rides going on. Get the Chasing Watts app and/or log into the Chasing Watts website to learn about upcoming rides.

What part of town do you live in? There are some group rides that don't get posted on Chasing Watts, but if you're on Facebook you can find groups there.

Look at pedicabs. I think focusing on accessibility aids will make things more expensive with safety features, etc.

If you just need an extra seat attached to your bike, pedicabs start at like $850 on Amazon. Used might be cheaper.

Yeah.... Rice is the best of the ones I've tried for sure. I'm pretty excited though, someone replied to the x-post in /r/houson with a very compelling route idea, outlined here: https://www.strava.com/routes/3306979

Didn't get a chance to try it yet but planning on doing it tomorrow morning. I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the offer, I'm in the med center area. Hope you had a good ride. I went out for a ride by myself. Was gunning for a metric half century but legs gave up on me.

https://www.strava.com/activities/391481734

Here's one I'm looking at -- https://ridewithgps.com/routes/32991189

An out and back that starts in the Heights and rides Clay west until it ends. Need to do some map research to see about connecting to Bellville. I'm by Uptown, so would probably take Antoine north to W. 43/Clay. Looking at this in a couple weeks. If it works then plan a loop dipping through Katy and George Bush returning on Briar Forest and San Felipe.

For anyone that's interested, here's the route I ended up doing East of Anahuac. Its a solid drive out there, but I don't think you could find a better road to try for a solo 40K effort. You can park at Double Bayou Park, about a minute ride from the start of the "course". This route is about as flat ands straight as it gets and on a Saturday morning I think I saw less than 10 cars in the whole hour. There's zero stop lights/signs. The road itself is in pretty good shape, except when you drive by one of the oil field access road where the road gets pretty rough. The wind was pretty brutal because of how open those wetland areas are, but if you could find a low wind day it would be an incredibly fast route. I think its actually part of the normal Bike Around the Bay course.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/34514002

the one below, has a corresponding mtb ride that heads out the back of their shop. I have seen everyone from moms on their first ride to clearly advance riders on a nice softail 29er: Bike Barn Champions Ride When Sat, September 3, 7:30am – 7:30am Where 6935 Cypresswood Dr. Ste D. Spring, TX 77379 (map) Description http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/22163138 Pace is kept at 22 it is never allowed to increase

I will look for some more this weekend/tomorrow while "working" at work

here's some more Houston routes I found in Komoot without signing in.

https://www.komoot.com/discover/Houston/@29.7422000%2C-95.4903000?sport=racebike&distance=16.1