My Modern Midwest: Kansas City By Bike

Kim Horgan took her time making it to the Midwest — born in California, she grew up in Oklahoma before making the move to Kansas City. But now that she’s arrived, she’s enamored. An avid cyclist, Kim travels around Kansas City by bike, documenting the city’s natural beauty and hidden urban gems on Instagram @kim_horgan.

As a mother of three and an artist, finding time to hit the bike trails can be a balancing act. For My Modern Midwest, Kim shared her go-to bike paths, beautiful city views and the best places to catch a sunset.

Downtown Kansas City — Main Street construction zone. Downtown is one of my favorite places to ride, especially on Sundays when the streets are empty.

Downtown Kansas City — old building and construction zone. Great place to ride around and find artistic graffiti and interesting buildings.

Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Built in 2011. Architect Moshe Safdie.

Sunset reflects at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art and gives a golden backdrop to the Bloch Building. A great place to ride to in Kansas City; I always enjoy the sculpture garden. Bloch Building built in 2007. Architect Steven Holl.

Kauffman Memorial Garden, free and open to the public year round.

Kauffman Memorial Garden, park your bike and grab a bench surrounded by fountains and flowers.

Historic bridge on the Brush Creek Trail in Kansas City.

My favorite way to end a bike ride at Shawnee Mission Park: find this bench and watch the sun set over the lake. (Shawnee Mission Park’s only about twenty minutes from downtown Kansas City.)

Loose Park is a great mid-town park to ride around, walk through, play tennis in or just sit and watch the geese swim in the pond.

Leawood Park mountain bike trails — fifteen minutes south of downtown Kansas City, on the Kansas side!

Indian Creek Trail on the Missouri side. This trail has tree-lined biking and walking paths, a pond and old graffiti covered bridges. I always see deer on this ride even thought it’s in the middle of the city.

Graffiti, mid-town Kansas City. “Idiots on Parade” – Kansas City has an amazing collection of graffiti all over the mid-town and crossroads districts. It makes for an interesting ride to just cruise through the alleyways and see the art.

View of Kansas City from Penn Valley Park. Penn Valley Park’s lookout point, near the famous Scout Statue, is a great place to take a break mid-ride while biking around the city. You can see not only downtown Kansas City, MO, but Kansas City, KS as well.