I know this is not an "epic" ride by anyone's standards but I rode it and I suffered for it
 
Last Wednesday I was supposed to attend the meeting of the NCTCOG  Bike/Ped Advisory Committee in Arlington. As you might know I don't have a car, hence my invitation to the Advisory Committee. Well Arlington is the largest city in the US if not the world to not have public transit, so taking the bus was out. The building I was going to was off the intersection of Randol Mills and Six Flags Roads, not the best place in the world to walk to either. Turns out the only way to get there for me was to put myself and Gigi on the TRE and get off at Centreport Station and ride the rest of the way to NCTCOG for the meeting.
 
I used Bike Route Toaster and Google Maps to find a way to the site that didn't require as much climbing and was still fairly short to ride 8.8 miles from the train station to the bureaucrats in Arlington. Well Rob't Frost had something to say about the plans of mice and men, and mine "gang agley" like the mice in the nest. I was supposed to turn right off of Carrier Parkway onto NW 19^th St to bypass some sharp hills and a bad overpass, only to find when I got there it wasn't, there that is. What was supposed to be a 35MPH surface street was a 45 MPH limit, 60 MPH actual, frontage road for SH161. Sorry I'm not riding anyplace I can't bail from if some idiot decides I don't belong there with him, but which way do I go? I knew I was supposed to cut west on Tarrant Rd, and I also knew that Tarrant Rd was on both sides of 19^th. What I hoped was that it was still possible to get over where 19^th used to be on Tarrant. I continued on Carrier (over a monster overpass crossing over I30 that 19^th was supposed to route me around), turned on Tarrant, and eventually got over the construction of SH161. I missed the road I was supposed to turn left on because I couldn't see the street signs for all the traffic and eventually turned on Great Southwest Pkw'y, which has crap pavement at that point. Chip seal would be an improvement over the patches on top of patches etc through as many as 6 iterations in one spot. I have ridden MTB trails that were less rough with, exposed roots, than what passed for "pavement" on Great Southwest. Anyway I managed to find a way to NCTCOG in the 99 F heat (at DFW, riding on the roads was probably hotter) and drained a 24 Oz bottle in the 10 miles or so I rode to get there.
 
Coming back was even more fun as I got caught in rush hour traffic coming out of the Bell Helicopter factory. I was keeping up with traffic even going uphill (Gigi climbs like a homesick angel) but that didn't stop the angry screams swearing and threats of violence.
 
Anyway, the good news is that funding has been secured for the Veloway, and the first project will be connecting all the recreational bike paths into a single route that runs from downtown Plano to downtown Dallas and connects to residential and commercial areas along the way, to be open by winter 2010, with routes that connect to Mesquite, Garland, and Balch Springs to the east and Arlington, HEB and Ft. Worth in the west completed by 2020. Naturally I will believe such things when I actually ride on the one from Garland to Ft. Worth which they say may be done as soon as 2015
 
All told I did just shy of 24 miles, 72 Oz of water while riding and another 48 when I got home (and I was still a couple of pounds light the next morning before I had enough water to let me do the urine test at the lab rat keeper's place. Riding in heavy traffic in the summer in TX can be a draining experience.

I have long found it interesting that about the only cyclists you can get involved in bicycle planning are bike commuters and developers *AND* the planning meetings are usually located in places that are about as impractical to get to by bike as they can make them.  I've been asked several times to serve also, but it's a blasted 26 miles one way to the meetings, they are held at night, there is no place to safely keep my bike when there and it's 9 miles to the nearest bus stop. They just don't get it. Or maybe they get it exactly right.  If you haven't read it yet, be sure and read "Asphalt Nation" by Jane Holtz Kay. (Every developer around here is anti-bike but I honestly don't understand why). Good Job!  Do the research, keep roads safe for cycling!
 
Texas Transportation Multimodal Systems Manual - ch 3&4
http://onlinemanuals.txdot.gov/txdotmanuals/mms/mms.pdf