I don’t typically post about biking when I’m not training for a Bike MS event, but I still ride multiple times a week. This weekend I decided to incorporate the new Southern Walnut Creek Trail into my route, which just opened. It’s a paved 7 mile long hike and bike trail, one of a few such projects the city is working on right now, which includes the Northern Walnut Creek Trail very close to my house. I think the grand vision is for these two trail systems to connect, but it’s not funded or designed yet. 

I rode to the southern end of the trail, which begins in Govalle park, to get on the trail. It was strange – the trail head wasn’t marked at all and you couldn’t even see it from the street. It was marked by one small green bicycle sign once you were in the small park.

 

The trail is unfortunately paved like a sidewalk – cracks and all – and that doesn’t make for very smooth riding on a road bike. Kathunk, kathunk, kathunk… It was worse in some places than others.

The trail has many bridges and you ride along the creek in a number of places.

And you go under some bridges, including this railroad bridge:

 

 

The trail is nice and shaded in some parts, more so on the southern section of the trail. The northern end gets quite sunny.

 

The trail was quite overgrown by vegetation in parts, leaving only about half of the path actually rideable. A number of places had lots of dirt and sand on the concrete, making for a slippery ride. I assume the city will soon clean those places up and maintain the trail for maximum use. Construction has only recently ended.

The trail goes into Walter E Long park, but I turned off before then because I wasn’t sure where it went after that. Looking closer at the Walnut Creek Trail system page, I see that the Manor trail actually is partially constructed, so I could have ridden that trail instead of riding along the busy Decker lane. Next time!