Cycling in West Lafayette

West Lafayette is a compact, bike-dense college town built around Purdue University, and its racing pedigree is collegiate: the Purdue Cycling Club competes in the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference and hosts the Purdue Boilermaker Omnium, a weekend of road race, team time trial and a campus-area criterium. The bigger recreational date on the calendar is the Wabash River Ride, the Wabash River Cycle Club’s long-running supported ride out of Fort Ouiatenon each August, with paved routes up to about 100 miles plus gravel options. Day-to-day riding centers on the river: the Wabash Heritage Trail runs roughly 13 miles (a paved section plus unpaved footpath) from Fort Ouiatenon to Tippecanoe Battlefield Park, while the 3.1-mile paved Cattail Trail loops through wetlands near campus and is a designated National Recreation Trail.

Bike-specific lodging is thin here — no local hotel advertises a loaner or dedicated bike-storage program — so cyclists choose by location. The Hilton Garden Inn at Wabash Landing sits about a block from the Wabash Heritage Trail and a mile from Purdue, and the Union Club Hotel puts you in the center of campus and its trail connections. For a bike, note that Purdue’s Veo micromobility fleet is e-scooters only as of 2026 (no bike-share), and the campus Trek dealer (Hodson’s Bay) sells and services rather than rents. The most likely rental is Virtuous Cycles in neighboring Lafayette, which visitor-bureau and directory listings say rents bikes; call ahead to confirm. There are no commercial guided bike tours or shuttles in the area.

Just southwest of town on the banks of the Wabash, the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon recreates an 18th-century French and Native American fur-trading gathering each October at Fort Ouiatenon — a large living-history weekend worth timing a visit around.