Ride marks Houston’s 100th B-Cycle bike station
R.A. Schuetz | Houston Chronicle
Monica Coker has her own bicycle. But for a social bike ride starting with brunch in the Heights and stopping for beer off of Washington Avenue, she borrowed a cycle from the bike-share nonprofit Houston B-Cycle.
“It was much more convenient,” she said.
Two dozen cycling newbies and regulars gathered Sunday morning for Pedal and Pints. While some brought their own bikes, others borrowed from Houston B-Cycle, which on Monday will celebrate its 100th city bike station, a kiosk where people can check out and return red city bikes for a fee.
The number of B-Cycle stations in Houston has ballooned in recent years. The 100th bike station ceremony was set to take place at the end of 2019, but was rescheduled due to weather; now there are already 109 stations, up from three in 2012. according to B-Cycle. In 2018, 56,000 riders rode a total of 967,000 miles on B-Cycle bikes. Houston City Council recently extended B-Cycle’s contract for another two years and approved roughly $500,000 to fund 199 additional bikes and 26 new bike stations.
But the extent of Houston B-Cycle’s success is perhaps most apparent when comparing the company to its Colorado counterpart, Denver B-Cycle. In November, Denver B-Cycle, which launched in 2010, announced it was shutting down at the end of January. Almost 200 of its bikes were shipped to Houston, where they are being repaired, rebranded and added to Houston’s fleet, said Houston B-Cycle.
Denver B-Cycle’s demise was caused, in part, by competition from other mobility services such as electronic scooter and e-bike companies owned by the likes of Uber and Lyft. In Dallas, a program similar to B-Cycle also suffered after scooters and dockless bikes came into town.
But in Houston, B-Cycle has thrived, protected in part because the city lacks regulations for scooters and dockless bikes. In addition, many cyclists have fallen in love with the trails built alongside Houston’s bayous.
Ian Freeman, a mechanic with B-Cycle and self-described “bike nut,” moved to Houston from Philadelphia. He said that while New England likes to think of itself as more bike-friendly, “I like it a lot better down here — mostly because there are trails everywhere.”
The trails are part of a project known as Bayou Greenways 2020, which is in the process of creating a 150-mile network of connected parks and trails.
Pedal and Pints, which takes place the last Sunday of every month, is just one of the events put on by Houston B-Cycle and the Houston Parks Board so people can meet one another, learn the bike trails and perhaps overcome their fears of city biking.
It was Tessa Andrade’s first time on a cycle since 2017.
“Before that, the last time was when I was six, maybe?”
“I’ve always been scared to bike,” said her friend, Liz Hughes, who hadn’t cycled in two years. They agreed that they felt safer riding in a group of cyclists who knew what they were doing.
Luisa Sanchez, on the other hand, is a frequent face at group biking events.“We’re social riders,” she said of herself and friends.
When she first got back into biking as an adult, she rented B-Cycles. Now, she has her own bike and has cajoled friends, including Jesus Luis, to join her.
For Coker, a longtime cyclist, the changes in the cycling scene have been exciting to see. “You have a lot more safe bike trails, where you don’t have to interface with traffic. And I think it helps connect communities,” she said. She gestured at the Houston skyline, visible from Buffalo Bayou Brewery’s rooftop — she lives in Westbury and doesn’t have many reasons to come to the Washington Avenue area.
“If it weren’t for this trail, I wouldn’t be in this area. It brings Houston together.”