The Compass

Avondale, by bike.

Avondale spreads across flat Sonoran Desert ground on the west side of the Phoenix metropolitan area, and the flatness is a genuine gift: distance comes cheap here, for any rider on any bike. The strongest card is range — nearly 140 miles of mapped cycleways and paths give real room to roam without a single climb to budget for. The counterweight is the desert calendar, which turns seven months of the year hot enough that riding shifts to early mornings and evenings, and an everyday-cycling share that is still very small. Connections, calm streets, and a friendlier way in for new riders are all in their growing stage — each one an opportunity, with an unusually large network already in place to build from.

Gentle terrain 139.7 mi network 5 good-riding months ~0.3% ride to work

Last updated · 2026-07 See something off? Tell us →

Where it is

Avondale — gentle terrain in Arizona

The shape

The shape, at a glance

The whole city in a screen: the profile, the ground and the riding year, and a few sourced figures.

The profile

Strongest on Room to Roam. Car-Light is the near edge, with the most room to grow.

Ground & the riding year

Gentle

Mighty

Avondale is about as flat as riding gets. The city sits on the level floor of the Sonoran Desert plain, and there is no hill worth planning around anywhere in town. Any bike with any gearing will do, and a new rider never has to wonder whether the route home includes a climb. The terrain is simply not a factor here — the sun is.

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

The riding year. About 5 good months around a long, hot summer; ride early on the worst days.

Comfortable Hot & humid Cool & short days

The riding year here runs upside down: November through March is the prime season, while April through October turns hot enough to push riding to early mornings and evenings.

Terrain · Open-Meteo Elevation (Copernicus DEM) · 2026-07
Season · Open-Meteo (ERA5 climate reanalysis) · daylight by latitude · 2026-07

By the numbers

Bike network

139.7 mi

mapped cycleways and paths (OpenStreetMap)

Source · OpenStreetMap (Overpass): highway=cycleway/path

Everyday riding

~0.3%

of commuters bike to work (Census ACS)

Source · US Census ACS 5-year, table B08301

Is it a good month to ride? Read the year month by month.

The six dimensions

Read it dimension by dimension

Tap a dimension to jump to it.

Connected Room to grow Growing

Does the network join up into usable routes?

Avondale has nearly 140 miles of mapped cycleways and paths — a large supply for a city of its size, laid across ground with no terrain barriers at all. The open question, as usual, is whether the pieces join into routes a person can ride end to end. Much of the mileage follows the grid of wide suburban arterials, and the joints between segments — intersections, canal crossings, gaps mid-corridor — are where a promising route breaks down. This dimension sits near the top of its growing band for a reason: the raw material is unusually plentiful, and stitching it together would do more for daily riding than building anything new.

Source · OpenStreetMap (Overpass): highway=cycleway/path

Calm Room to grow Growing

How much riding is away from fast traffic?

The mapped network is the main supply of low-stress riding in Avondale, and at nearly 140 miles it covers more ground than most cities can offer. The catch is the character of the streets it threads between: the west-valley grid is built around wide, fast arterials, and where a route leaves the network, the traffic it joins is moving quickly. Calm riding here is real but conditional — good along the paths and lanes, demanding at the crossings and gaps. The opportunity is in taming those seams, especially the big intersections, so that a calm route stays calm for its whole length.

Source · OpenStreetMap (Overpass): highway=cycleway/path

All-Season Room to grow Growing

How rideable is this place across weather and seasons?

The desert calendar is the constraint here. Seven months of the year — April through October — run hot, the kind of heat that pushes riding to dawn and dusk and makes a midday errand a real decision. The flip side deserves equal weight: November through March is a five-month stretch of genuinely excellent riding weather, the season other places wait all year for. So the pattern is not unrideable, it is inverted — winter is the riding season, and summer asks for early starts, water, and shade. A low band on this dimension is geography, not failure; the opportunity is in shade trees, water access, and routes that make the hot months workable.

Source · Open-Meteo (ERA5 climate reanalysis)

Welcoming Room to grow Growing

How easy is it for a newcomer or nervous rider to get started?

Avondale offers a newcomer two real advantages: dead-flat ground, and nearly 140 miles of mapped paths and lanes to start on. Nobody's first ride here needs to involve a hill, and that removes one of the biggest quiet barriers to getting started. What a nervous rider still has to negotiate is the scale of the streets — wide, fast arterials that can feel intimidating even where a lane or path runs alongside — and a network whose gaps can deposit a beginner into traffic without warning. The opportunity is signposting: clear, connected, genuinely easy first routes exist in this much mileage, and pointing to them would lower the bar considerably.

Source · Open-Meteo Elevation (Copernicus DEM); OpenStreetMap (Overpass): highway=cycleway/path

Room to Roam Solid

How far can you genuinely go by bike?

Range is Avondale's strongest suit. Nearly 140 miles of mapped network on completely flat ground means distance is limited by daylight and temperature, not by legs or gearing — twenty flat miles here cost what ten rolling miles cost elsewhere. The network reaches across the city and toward the rest of the west valley, so longer trips are genuinely on the table for an ordinary rider. The seasonal caveat is real: in the hot months, practical range contracts to what you can ride in the cool hours with water along. Even so, for most of the year this is a place where the bike can truly cover serious ground.

Source · OpenStreetMap (Overpass): highway=cycleway/path; Open-Meteo Elevation (Copernicus DEM)

Car-Light Room to grow Growing

How well can the bike replace car trips here?

About 0.3% of Avondale commuters bike to work, which says plainly that the car is the default for nearly every trip. The pattern is familiar for a fast-growing suburban city: distances between home, work, and errands are set by car-scale planning, and seven hot months make year-round commitment genuinely hard. But the foundations are better than the number suggests — flat ground, a big mapped network, and a five-month winter season when riding conditions are close to ideal. The realistic opportunity is seasonal and short-trip: school runs, errands, and winter commutes are where the bike can start replacing the car here, and the infrastructure to carry them largely already exists.

Source · US Census ACS 5-year, table B08301

Take action

Where Avondale has the most room to grow

The two dimensions with the widest opening here — read as an invitation, not a verdict. Every one of these is something a resident can move, and none of it requires expertise or a fight.

Car-LightGrowing · most room to grow

Car-light is a habit before it’s a statistic. Every ordinary errand made by bike makes the next one likelier — for you, and for the neighbor who sees it and thinks, I could do that.

Ride the ordinary trips, bring somebody with you, and have the numbers ready when someone asks.

All-SeasonGrowing · most room to grow

Nobody gets to lobby the weather. What is winnable is the shoulder season — a lane that’s swept, a light that works, a path that’s cleared — because maintenance is a thing a city can act on this week.

Report what’s in the way, and thank the crew that clears it. Both messages land.

Nothing in this section is sponsored and nothing carries an affiliate link — that separation is the point. All of it, joyful half included →

Find your people

Real, active groups we checked by hand — coalitions, community shops, ride clubs, and programs worth an email. Each is verified and dated. If one has gone quiet since we looked, tell us and we'll pull it.

Statewide

Active ArizonaActive Arizona, formerly the Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists, is a statewide nonprofit that promotes safer active transportation across Arizona through education, outreach, and input on local and statewide transportation plans.Verified · 2026-07

National

PeopleForBikesA national bike-advocacy nonprofit and industry coalition that works on better bike infrastructure and policy, and publishes the City Ratings that score how good U.S. cities are to ride.Verified · 2026-07
Rails to Trails ConservancyThe national nonprofit behind the rail-trail movement, turning former rail corridors into multiuse trails and running TrailLink, a free finder for trails near you.Verified · 2026-07
League of American BicyclistsA national bicycling advocacy and education nonprofit that runs the Bicycle Friendly America awards program, the Smart Cycling rider-education courses, and a nationwide network of local advocacy groups, clubs, and certified instructors.Verified · 2026-07
Adventure Cycling AssociationAdventure Cycling Association is a national nonprofit for bicycle travel, founded in 1973, that maps long-distance routes, helped build the U.S. Bicycle Route System, runs guided tours, and advocates for better cycling routes.Verified · 2026-07
Safe Routes PartnershipThe Safe Routes Partnership is a national nonprofit that helps make walking and biking to school and around the neighborhood safe and easy for kids and families, supporting local Safe Routes to School programs with resources and policy expertise.Verified · 2026-07
Move UnitedMove United is a national nonprofit whose local chapters offer adaptive sports and recreation, including adaptive cycling and handcycling, so people with disabilities can ride and stay active in their communities.Verified · 2026-07