Bicycle Tourism in Texas: How Gravel Roads Are Fueling Rural Revival

Bicycle tourism isn’t just about bikes; it’s about building healthier communities, attracting new visitors, supporting local businesses, and diversifying rural economies.

Texas, a state known for its expansive terrain and diverse landscapes, holds untapped potential in the world of adventure tourism—especially bicycle tourism. As interest in outdoor recreation grows nationally, rural Texas communities like Stephenville are looking at ways to explore how embracing bicycle tourism could revitalize local economies, support small businesses, and enhance community health.

But what exactly is the potential of bicycle tourism in a place like Erath County? Let’s take a closer look.

What is Bicycle Tourism?

Bicycle tourism, or cyclotourism, refers to travel that is centered around cycling. This can include everything from multi-day bikepacking trips through rural landscapes to shorter, family-friendly recreational rides or events like charity races and cycling festivals. Bicycle tourists tend to be higher-spending visitors, often traveling from out of town and spending money on accommodations, food, gear, and experiences. 

Unlike traditional road cycling, which often focuses on well-paved highways and requires significant infrastructure investment, gravel cycling--the mode of many cyclotourism adventures--thrives on the backroads that define much of Texas' countryside. Riders seek out long, scenic routes with minimal traffic, which rural counties like Erath and neighboring Comanche, Bosque, Hamilton, Palo Pinto, Eastland, and Somervell have in abundance. In fact, a look at Texas' gravel road maps reveals a dense network of gravel routes in Erath and surrounding counties and possibly the highest concentration of gravel roads in the region.

Bicycle tourism is not just about pedaling; it’s a gateway to rural exploration. In regions like the Texas Hill Country, this form of tourism has seen measurable success. Towns such as Fredericksburg have capitalized on their scenic roads, hospitality, and cultural charm to create bike-friendly destinations. Trails, signage, and local business support have all contributed to making these places attractive to cyclists from around the state and beyond.

Major events, like Unbound Gravel in Kansas, bring thousands of cyclists and spectators to small towns like Emporia, showcase how a well-organized gravel race or tour can generate millions in economic impact. Unbound Gravel is estimated to bring over 12,000 people and $5 million annually to the local economy, benefiting hotels, restaurants, bike shops, and local businesses. While many communities would love those tourist numbers, large-scale events come with growing pains. Rural infrastructure often struggles to handle a sudden influx of visitors, and the balance between economic benefits and local quality of life can be tricky to maintain.

What if there was a way to glean some of the economic impacts of such a high-level event without the stress and strain on the local infrastructure, local communities, and without the headache of a year’s worth of event planning?  How can rural communities capitalize on the desire of an increasing number of adventurous tourists to get away from the big cities and become “somebody” in small-town Texas?

The Economic Impact of Bicycle Tourism and Outdoor Recreation

When it comes to evaluating the economic impact of adventure tourism, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) can shine some light on the true dollar values of outdoor recreation in the state of Texas. The BEA report, using 2023 data, showed that outdoor recreation accounts for 2.16% of Texas’ total economy. This is up from just a little over 2% from 2012–an almost 7% increase. Put in real dollars, the total economic impact of outdoor recreation on the state’s economy amounts to $55.8 billion (3rd nationally) and just over 389,000 jobs. Interestingly enough, cycling itself accounts for $163 million in economic impact. 

Texas ranks 6th in the nation in revenue generated from bicycling and 3rd nationally in ORSA value added according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. To see the full PDF report, click the image above.

In other words, cycling accounts for just .2% of the total outdoor recreation impact in Texas (6th nationally). While that number may look miniscule, it’s a significant sliver of an easily-scalable economic population. To put this into the context of jobs, cycling in Texas helps support 1,140 jobs across the state. Due to the many factors that play into bicycle tourism, it’s difficult to pinpoint what the overall economic impact either in dollars or jobs could be to any specific rural area; however, we can make an attempt at the math on how it would impact Stephenville. Let’s look at some data published by the Stephenville Economic Development Authority (SEDA):

• Population of Erath County: 44,195

• GDP Per Capita: $40,900

• Total GDP for Erath County (population * GDP/capita): $1.807 billion

  
  

Now, it’s important to note that Stephenville serves a much larger trade area, according to the SEDA, of 120,000 people. But for simplicity, let’s stick with Erath County number. Assuming the data we have is correct and if we extrapolate some of that data from the BEA data, the impact of outdoor recreation would look something like this:

• Total potential economic impact: $39 million (Erath GDP * 2.16%)

• Total potential economic impact per capita: $882

• Total potential cycling economic impact: $78,000

• Total potential cycling impact (expanded trade area): $211,800

  
  

It goes without saying that these are pie-in-the-sky figures. The reality is that there are very few direct outdoor recreation opportunities in Erath County that don’t involve the state’s top 3 activities (boating/fishing, RVing, and hunting/shooting/trapping). The nearest Texas state park is Dinosaur Valley and with limited outdoor recreation activities physically in Erath County, these numbers most certainly skew much higher than reality. What we can take away from this information is the potential income that can be gained to the greater economic area by making an intentional investment into cyclotourism.

How Gravel Cycling Can Boost the Economies of Rural Texas

Gravel events, weekend rides, and self-supported bikepacking trips can drive an influx of visitors who need lodging, dining, and other amenities. Hotels, Airbnb rentals, campgrounds, and local restaurants stand to gain from increased visitor spending, but do communities need to invest all their resources into becoming more bike-friendly in an increasingly motorized world? The answer is, as with most things, “it depends.”

Speaking from a local perspective, the “it depends” argument often comes down to the current state of affairs. In Stephenville, Texas, where RIDE GRVL is based, the city recently issued a notice of new debt in the amount of $22 million to pay for long overdue infrastructure repairs and a new city hall. Infrastructure improvements are often cited as a reason why rural cities choose not to be more bike friendly. Older towns, and especially those in more rural areas such as Stephenville and Erath County, simply don’t have the tax revenue or the physical space (think widening roads and sidewalks) to make needed bike infrastructure repairs. (Although that $1.8 billion in retail sales could go a long way to helping.)

Yet, rural communities still have plenty of opportunities to tap into adventure tourism. In fact, most cities can support adventure and bicycle tourism through strategic partnerships with local businesses, supporting grassroots events, advocating for local cycling clubs, and even finding creative ways to involve even the smallest of niche communities of runners, cyclists, and climbers–all of which have a place in my local community. Runners are supported by the robust Stephenville Running Club, gravel and adventure cycling is at your fingertips, and local climbers can find one of the area’s best crags at Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway about 45 minutes north.

Where Scalability and Reality Collide

What often gives rural towns pause for concern is the scalability of these efforts. Not long ago, I sat down with city tourism leaders in Stephenville for a very productive conversation, but one thing that caught my ear was a comment regarding how city leadership wasn’t looking for another “niche” endeavor. I found that comment amusing as “niche” communities are what, quite literally, built major gravel events such as The Mid South, Unbound Gravel, and locally Gravel Locos. Niche communities are often the spark to a greater fire that burns within these microcosms of adventure tourism. Ask Bobby Wintle (District Bicycles, The Mid South, Stillwater, OK) or Heidi and Zander Ault of Patagonia, Arizona what a niche community did for their businesses. But it takes people with vision, a spark, and a burning desire to instill the passion they have for their community into others who share similar interests.

This brings me back to the point: there are two ways communities, especially those like gravel riding, are born. One is with money, pizzazz, and flash. Gravel Locos has built its event around spectacle, bringing in pro riders to Hico, Texas, for a late-May gravel race and Unbound tune-up.

The Mid South? Quite the opposite. 

If you’ve read RIDE GRVL at all, you know my feelings about Wintle and the culture he’s built, but The Mid South and District Bicycles is about as niche and grassroots as a business or event can come in today’s world. The first ever Mid South was more of a sporadic group ride than it was a national event. Fast forward to September 2024 (where that quote originated), and Wintle rolled out the Mega Mid South–a 300-mile circumnavigation of all of the Mid South routes to date. Over 100 people toed the starting line including, you guessed it, Wintle himself. No entry fees, no winners, no losers, just gutsy gravel riding at its purest.

I have a poster hanging in my cube at my office with Bobby Wintle’s face on it that says, “If you give people a chance to try and be insane, they will do it.”

What does Wintle have that no one else does? Community support. Not just his District Bicycles family, but also the City of Stillwater itself. Support costs next to nothing for a rural town, but city leaders often put a time value on these things–an opportunity cost, if you will. “Supporting XYZ ‘niche’ community will cost me X hours that I could be spending raking in big tourist dollars elsewhere,” say city leaders across rural Texas. Painting with broad strokes isn’t fair to the towns with adequate buy-in, but for cities looking to make their mark on tourists, adventure tourism isn’t it. The truth is that everything can be counted, every dollar, every tourist, every head in every bed can be quantified, and quantifiable ROI is what each director of tourism in every small town is looking for. The reality? The true opportunity cost of community support is negligible compared to the sheer volume of return a city gets on those efforts.

How Can Rural Texas Towns Support Bicycle Tourism?

Advancing bicycle tourism and adventure tourism writ large is the mechanism by which rural Texas can be saved. Spending time “dollars” on developing consistent community-focused (dare I say “niche”) opportunities spreads like a wild fire on the plains. Agritourism, rural business expansion, infrastructure investment, community development, job creation, and greater entrepreneurial opportunities are all the fruits of small bits of labor to rural cities. It doesn’t take much to make a lot.

Take Fayetteville, Arkansas as an example. My wife and I spent a week in Fayetteville—somewhere we had never been—because Experience Fayetteville published so many cycling routes that made it a must-visit for us. Sure, Fayetteville hosted the 2022 UCI World Cyclocross Championships, thanks in large part to the Walmart corporation and Walton family, but the residual income (the true ROI) of investing in adventure tourism, and specifically in the case of Fayetteville bicycle tourism, continues to pay dividends years down the road. Northwest Arkansas has become a hub for gravel cyclists. Bentonville, speaking of entrepreneurial opportunities, is home to the Bentonville Bike Camp–Hipcamp’s #1 place to visit in 2024–a gravel cyclist's dream camping destination.

Let’s suppose, though, that you don’t have Walmart money. What then? How do you save rural America when you don’t have the flash of greenbacks? The answer: Culture. Cultural buy-in, as I’ve already alluded to, really doesn’t have a dollar cost associated with it. Rural towns can spend almost zero financial capital in order to build and promote meaningful cultural change in the name of building something from the ground up. After all, isn’t that the dream of every local tourism director? To build an event or a culture from something that otherwise never existed? Of course it is, and rural Texas is on the precipice of being able to catapult itself toward becoming a niche tourism mecca.

So where are these adventure and bicycle tourism folks headed? Where do they go when the culture doesn’t exist in a place where it would thrive?

The numbers tell a story of opportunity: outdoor recreation, including cycling, is not just a pastime—it’s an economic engine. While Erath County may not yet be a hotbed of adventure tourism, it sits at the edge of untapped potential. With thoughtful planning and small investments, communities like Stephenville can carve out a niche in Texas’s growing outdoor economy.

Bicycle tourism isn’t just about bikes; it’s about building healthier communities, attracting new visitors, supporting local businesses, and diversifying rural economies. And when it comes to gravel, rural Texas already has the terrain, the charm, and the grit.

Now it just needs the invitation.