Explore the best rated trails in Ionia, MI, whether you're looking for an easy walking trail or a bike trail like the Fred Meijer Flat River Trail and Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Rail Trail . With more than 37 trails covering 643 miles you're bound to find a perfect trail for you. Click on any trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
The parts of the trail not on Ravine Rd seem great. Sure, the downtown route is a bit tricky but they have center lines to mark the bike path now along arcadia creek and the festival site, etc. My real complaint is they were not able to find a solution for nearly a couple of miles along Ravine Rd, other than a small segment on the property of Kalamazoo Public School Transportation, where someone on inline skates or a small bike could enjoy a small break from a narrow bike lane. Is that what they hoped they would be able to do all along that side, but only the Kalamazoo owned public transportation would agree to it, and the rest, you have to use a fairly narrow bike lane. The exception is that the last quarter mile or so, on the south side of Ravine before Douglas Ave, there is a really nice bike lane, with extra shoulder on the right of it. Why couldn't that have been extended further up? I have even used that against traffic when coming back before crossing over to the right side of the rd, because it is such a wider area than the bike lane on the north side of Ravine at that point. After all this time, it would have been nice if they found some options to improve that segment. The rest of it, I really like though!
Love that this trail is close to home for me. It’s a little bumpy in places but my husband and I really enjoy it.
I don't know why it's called the River Valley trail since most of it goes right next to the highway, with only occasional views of a river and no valley to be seen. We rode 20 miles starting in Galesburg. The first couple of miles were scenic, through a wooded area but the next 10 miles were along the highway - BORING AND UGLY. When we got to Kalamazoo, we found several detours because of unsafe bridges. That forced us to cross busy highways. While the trail surface was mostly good, the location of the trail was terrible.
This trail is one of those half-urban, half-nature trails. It's a bit difficult to stay on the urban parts, as trail markings are a bit rare, with the trail really hitting its stride in the nature segments.
A mix of urban & nature.
The nature segments are excellent, beautiful and lush but the urban parts can be difficult to stay, as markers are few.
It's a nice easy ride and a great route for students commuting to and from campus. However, it's kind of squeezed between apartment complexes and residential areas in spots, which kind of cuts into the scenery a bit.
Nice, straight trail. Plenty of places for parking and amenities in each town. I wish it were paved all the way through, but in general the crushed limestone isn't a huge obstacle between towns. Highly recommend!
The sheer length of the trail is what makes it really worthwhile in my opinion. It covers South Lansing, Downtown, Hawk Island Park, Potter Park Zoo, and MSU's campus, which is a nice sampling of Greater Lansing. It's also nicely forested and quite scenic, especially in the fall. With that being said, the downtown stretch and the bit between Aurelius and Kalamazoo are both in need of repair; everything else is pretty much perfect, though!
This is a nice trail, with offshoot branches that help to differentiate it from other trails.
Pavement is mostly sooth except in the last section, what I guess are plant roots cracking upwards the pavement so badly that it actually launched my bum off the seat an inch or two.
This short & smooth trail is a pleasant but very brief through a secluded marsh/wetland spot.
You might want to consider walking this one instead of another mode of transportation, as it's over before it really begins.
Still, I would recommend the trail to anyone looking for one.
There isn't too much to say about this trail except that it's an admittedly smooth ride for bike riders, but other than that, Valhalla doesn't offer interesting to either see or do; so if you aren't a local, I wouldn't bother. The experience is not even 3 full miles (round trip), so it's over before it even begins.
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