Rode the Lower Trail on a weekday in September from Alexandria trailhead to Williamsburg and back. Saw 5 other riders and one trout fisherman. Crushed gravel trail surface was good; the several miles of pavement near Williamsburg were rougher. The trail was clear of branches and shaded. Frequent birdhouses and benches along the trail. Unfortunately the Lower Creamery in Williamsburg was closed until next summer.

We started at the trail head just outside Vintondale where the C&I Spur splits off. It was a beautiful sunny day. The first 4-5 miles of the C&I spur is in great shape and a very nice ride along the creek. At Vic Miller Road there is a short on-road segment to what looks like a very new or refurbished section of the C&I extension. This section is very nice. It travels over some bridges and forested lands. The trail is in perfect condition. There were a lot of other bikers, walkers, and ebikers on the trail. Very friendly.
After another 8 miles the trail dead ends on a residential street. (North St.). A little bit of on-road riding gets you to Expedite St and then Cardiff Rd. Cardiff Rd is all downhill into Nanty Glo. Cardiff Rd. has a bit more traffic. But going this way, it is all downhill and you are in Nanty Glo in 5-10 minutes. We had a beer and a very nice meal in town, then took the the mainline trail back to Vintondale. This is a great trail. I hope to return and ride into Ebensburg.

I almost skipped it. 1.7 almost not worth loading and unloading. True the official trail ends at 1.7, but the next 2.5 was easily rideable on my hybrid with 38mm wide tires. A couple soft spots but not bad. I’ve ridden hall-of-fame trails that were worse. Worst spot was about 100ft from end at Montauk Circle. Felt like pretty much gradual uphill grade form State College until about 1 mile from end. Be careful at Toftrees Ave. Cars seemed to come down that hill and around the curve pretty fast.

Nice views of Toftrees golf course. Trail even shared the paved cart path for a short section. Some road noise from 322 in the middle of the ride. I enjoyed the west end the most. On the way back, I veered off in the Arboretum to Big Hollow Road and some riding through campus and the old historic neighborhood.

Pretty steep hill right at the start at the park. Glad it was short. Nice going down, wasn’t looking forward to coming up it. Avoided it by coming back on Big Hollow, but it had hills too.

Ended up doing 10.5 very enjoyable miles. If you’re in town, be sure to ride this one……bikin-Mike

My husband and i were on vacation from Maine. We have fat tire mountain bikes and have a shwinn child carrier that we haul for our 2 dachshunds. We have the rails to trail system at home and found out they had it here. So we started in williamsburg and made our way to the very end of the trail. It starts out on pavement then turns to like crushed packed limestone. The trails were awesome, smooth without any pot holes. It was great. There were benches to stop and take breaks and have lunch. There was a picnic area with picnic tables about half way to the end of trail system and our only bad thing that happened during our trip was one of our dachshunds which is only 13 weeks old started to whine, so my husband pulled off the side of the trail to see what was wrong and stepped in someones dog poop and it was all stuck in his sneaker. So i guess some people don’t pick up after their pets. At the end we got the dogs a pup cup icecream at the lower trail creamery. The young man that was running it was so nice and very polite. We met several people along the trail that stopped to talk to us and even and older gentleman as we were loading up. It was a great way to spend our last day here in Pennsylvania. The people here are the nicest people we have run into out of all the states we have visited. The state is just so beautiful and you feel so welcome here by everyone. People here say hi, they wave and even hold the door open for you. We will definitely be coming back again.

August 11 -- arrived at Saylor Park as a morning rain subsided and the humidity rose with temps in the 80s F. The trailhead to Dilltown, near the vault toilet, was not immediately obvious. Be careful not to take the Hoodlebug trail by mistake. Spotting a large black snake was the highlight of our day. Saylor Park has a nice picnic pavilion where we ate lunch after our easy, somewhat downhill return ride from Dilltown. Rain started soon after lunch.
Considering the amount of rain in the days prior to and the morning of our ride, the trail was in excellent condition, even for our road bikes. No serious washouts or mud. Kudos to the trail crews who maintain this section!! A lot of shade made this a great trail to ride on hot summer days.
August 13 -- more rain last night and another day in the 80s F. A moment of confusion when we tried to find trailhead parking at Vintondale/Eliza Station. Trailhead parking is down the street and around the corner from the Eliza Furnace site. Again we were impressed by the excellent trail conditions (more kudos to the trail crews). The Hwy 422 underpass at MM4 (the confluence of the north branch of Blacklick Creek and Elk Creek) is the only tricky portion of the trail. Pay attention to the "Slow Down" signs or you could end up in the creek. The almost 26-mile return ride was our longest so far this year. Our legs were relieved to have a mostly downhill return ride back to Vintondale. There was plenty of shade, great creek views and lots of late summer flowers to add to the joy of riding.

After riding this trail I'm not sure why it has so many 5 star ratings. I did ride it just after Hurricane Ida and there were some washouts but that did not affect my rating as I suspect those will be quickly repaired. We started from Tatesville and the section to the bridge over the Raystown Branch Juanita River was decent. It had a fairly good trail bed and was in the woods. No outstanding scenery until the bridge which was very nice. Not too far after the bridge the trail becomes a shared use gravel roadway for 2.3 miles. This is easy enough to ride and the river (flooded when we were there) is alongside all the time at this point. However, it is a gravel road. At the end of the road you ride some paved roads through Hopewell for a bit then back on to a decent portion of trail until Riddlesburg where you ride pavement again for a bit before turning back onto the trail which is a coarser gravel at this point - certainly rideable but not as much fun. (This section is actually beyond where the TrailLink map indicates that the trail stops). The trail dead ends at Red Cut with a gate. As a positive there were numerous benches along the way and some picnic tables. I did not see any tire pump or repair stations as mentioned by another poster though there may have been one in Riddlesburg where we pulled away from the trail just a bit. Amenities were basically non-existent. There was a small gas station in Riddlesburg which might have something and the post office advertised food but appeared closed. Hopewell may also have had a small business but it wasn't along the trail.

I would not drive any distance to ride this trail and will likely never ride it again. There is just nothing outstanding to warrant it and the gravel road ride probably sealed the deal on this review. In short, there are much better trails - and some worse.

This was a decent trail. Downhill going towards DuBois. Going back was a good workout.

Nice trail. At Punxsutawney the trail is marked closed in the down town area. We found the trail signs and found the trail again. Other than that , it is a very nice shady trail for a warm summer day.

Nicely maintained. It has bike repair and pump stations . Pretty trail