A Ride Down the Highway 71 Bike Path [PICS]
This weekend, I got to do a lot of bike infrastructure exploration. In addition to getting a sneak peek into the new Shoal Creek / Hike & Bike Trail connector, I took a long ride on Saturday to check out the bike path I’ve seen running alongside Highway 71 out to Bastrop.
Right now, getting to the rail by bike is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart. I crossed at 183 and cut down a side road and came out at 183. I was not nearly as daring as the fully loaded touring guy, who just said “Well, it looks like there’s one option and it’s not good” before just jumping out into the right lane of traffic on 183. I had my dog in a trailer behind me and instead decided to brave the construction zones and medians until I got over to the old Bastrop Highway, where it was smooth sailing. (Actually, that’s where I hit my first pit stop, when I was surprised to come across a brewery I didn’t know existed…)
From here though, it was mostly smooth sailing. Here’s some of the path:
Apparently I didn’t take many pictures of the path itself, but it’s your standard, double wide bike path. I saw nothing remarkable, really….until its abrupt ending under the road at Onion Creek, which I forded to get to the other paved paths at Barkley Meadows Park on the other side.
From here, I followed some more trails to some more dead ends before just hopping on the 130 feeder road, which was actually not terrible because there was no traffic on it, despite F1 being in town. Took that down to Elroy / Burleson and all was good from there…
