By sethjayson in October, 2011
Much of this trail is very rough, while some is smooth, brand-new asphalt. I run on it most often, and it's an amazing resource for that. For cycling, it's more of a mixed bag. Portions near my house are all but impassable for high-end skinny-tire bikes unless they're piloted by experience cyclocross types. We run much of the rough stuff with tadpole trikes and a child trailor, which is rough, but passable.
There are unbridged creek crossing that require wetting the feet, and it's not always obvious how to connect the different pieces of trail, but it's one of the few ways to be in the woods in this urban area for many miles at a time.
By byuriditsky in October, 2011
I was there in mid - October. We started from Great Falls park. It was a mistake, because the park part of trail was in poor condition – (deep sand, washed-off parts etc) and very hilly. This part of the trail ends at VERY dangerous (maybe 1.5 mile) Old Dominion Rd. The road is narrow, one lane each way and has a lot of traffic. After about 0.8 mile, there is a parking lot, where the trail continues. We were on hybrids, and after about 3 miles we turned back. The narrow path was muddy and barely paved. The pavement was not gravel, but big chunks of rock. There were many big trunks of fallen trees across the path. Small streams washed big gaps on the path. On the trail we meet some serious mountain bike guys. They told us, that the road is impassable for hybrids for at least 15 miles (they did not know about the rest of the trail). All 3 miles and back, we carried bikes more than ride them.