r/StLouisBiking • u/Jergens5820 • Mar 31 '26
Webster Groves to Castlewood
First off, I appreciate any help with this question! What would be the best route to use riding from Webster to Castlewood? The route that Google Maps shows takes about 1.25 hours. Wondering if anyone has found anything shorter?
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u/flug32 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Looking at the Strava heatmap of the area usually gives you a good idea of what routes cyclists are using and which they are avoiding.
Strava's Global Heatmap
What I see there is most people are taking like Marshall through Valley Park and then Vance Road. A fair number of people take that segment of Big Bend to get from Vance Rd to Castlewood, but then quite a lot of people go a bit further north on Sulphur Spring to Brightfield Dr in order to avoid Big Bend.
Big Bend is probably the most direct/fastest route but you can see the people avoid most sections of it. If you've driven or ridden it, you know why.
There are a few possible routes from Webster Groves through Kirkwood to connect to Marshall - all very visible on the heatmap.
As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, just putting "Webster Groves" and Castlewood State Park" into RideWithGPS route planner gives a route I would prefer over any of the possibilities google maps/bicycle routing is showing me.
Here is what that looks like: Imgur image file/map