A three point one mile asphalt loop in southwest Austin, twenty three feet wide, one way clockwise, with no cars and no pedestrians on it at all. Only bicycles and skaters are permitted, which makes it a genuinely unusual piece of public infrastructure: when it was built in the early 1990s it was the first facility of its kind in the United States. It sits on more than a hundred acres of the Slaughter Creek Metropolitan Park, and it exists because of a specific moment in Austin development. The Circle C Ranch subdivision went up during the boom years of the 1980s under the developer Gary Bradley, and the deal that produced it also produced a set of public amenities on the surrounding land, including the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center next door and this loop. What it is good for is riding without traffic. The surface is smooth, the grades are gentle, the sightlines are long, and it is the standard place in Austin to teach a child to ride confidently, to test a new bike, or to skate. It is free and open from dawn to dusk. The land around it is recharge zone for the Edwards Aquifer, which is the reason it was left undeveloped, so a ride around it is also a lap of the ground Austin spent the 1990s arguing about.
Getting there
30.1872, -97.8641
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
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