Explore the best rated trails in Olney, IL, whether you're looking for an easy walking trail or a bike trail like the City of Princeton Trails and Effingham TREC . With more than 2 trails covering 5 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.
I really enjoy this trail, it offers wonderful scenery and it is very well maintained, it is a full concrete path with several wooden bridges including one over the little Wabash it offers some great hills and if you go down both forks it is about a 7 mile round trip.
Not a good bike ride on this "bike trail". Steep hills and great curves, cool bridges but sooner or later there will be some bad accidents. Hikers walk 4 abreast and block your path and don't pay attention. With the steep hills it's hard to not ride with some speed yet you're generally forced to ride your brakes nearly everywhere or face the possibility of hitting a sleepwalker. They should just relabel it a "hiking trail". Maybe someday the county will have something for bikers but until then it's country roads dodging texting drivers, loose dogs, and rednecks who think it's funny to throw stuff out the window at you and aim their trucks at you. Ride on!
We were really surprised by the sharp hills on the north branch of the trail! We've never seen grades so steep that the trail had cautionary signs marking them, just like what you see driving through the mountains on a highway. You want to have good brakes and a helmet on for this ride. If the trail's clear and you can just let 'er rip on the downhill, you can probably get on up the next hill all right; if not, be prepared for some very hard pedaling to make it to the top. The one great help is the smooth, new concrete trail surface. Wheeee...!
The western branch is really beautiful, and a lot less challenging to ride. It does have a couple of long hills, down and back up from the river crossing. But there's plenty of eye candy to enjoy along the way. The woods. The meadows. The river. And The Bridge! The wooden approach ramp on either side is absolutely amazing. We've never seen such long, crooked, and nicely contoured bridge ramps.
The southern part of the trail is kind of boring by comparison. Just wide sidewalk-trail down a wide, new roadway. It does afford a couple of full-service truck stops -- good for something to eat, drink, and restrooms. It also has a good walkway connection into the town center of Effingham, over the interstate bridge on W. Fayette Ave.
If they're anything like this one, we're really looking forward to the completion of more trails in the TREC system!
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