Find the top rated running trails in Bellefontaine, whether you're looking for an easy short running trail or a long running trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a running trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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Looking for a tough assignment? Try this one. I might be the first reviewer to have done this trail from end to end. This is the slowest 36 miles that I have ever done.
Why do it? My interest in the Miami and Erie Canal started as a kid, as the canal was part of the backyard of my parents' house near Dayton, about an hour's drive south.
In 2019, I set out to do this trail from its beginning in Ft, Loramie Ohio to its end in Delphos Ohio. It took me three attempts.
Some facts: The entire 274 mile length of the Miami and Erie Canal started in Cincinnati and ended somewhere near Toledo. This particular "Miami and Erie Canal Trail" trail covers about 36 miles of it. Another reviewer referred to "Farnsworth" ...actually, that is a misplaced review that belongs to the "Towpath Trail" which is not this trail, but easy to be confused, as that trail also is along a more northerly section of the same Miami and Erie Canal. (BTW the Towpath Trail is much easier than this one.)
It took me three tries to finish the Miami and Erie Trail (e.g., see comment about culvert) but it's feasible to do it in one trip if you know where you are going.
While the trail is "good," as in clearly marked, and hikers have no problem, it is not easy to cycle with a few exceptions. You will need a mountain bike to take it from end to end. Forget about taking your kid along for this one - it's really rugged in spots. Some parts of the trail are hard-paved, others are graveled, but much is grassland along the edge of farmers fields. Sometimes the trail disappears and you are riding the adjacent road.
Fort Loramie - In a word: disconnected. Go to the State Park and ride along the lake's edge on the road side, and do a quick tour of the park. The lake was a feeder to the canal. It's placid and pretty. Ride the road along the canal hiking trail, then you will come to Ohio Rt 66, and realize that the bike path isn't really there...it's someone's backyard, or - across the road - a rough uncut farmers field with ground hog burrows under the uncut grass. That might be Ok for hiking, but not for bikes. If you want to make it to Minster-New Bremen, then load the bike on your car, or ride the edge of OH 66.
Minster-New Bremen - this is a nice stretch, the trail is a mix of graveled and hard-paved path and canal-side streets. Stop at the AWESOME WORLD CLASS!!! Bicycle Museum of America. On display is the world's first bicycle .. the real deal.
Going north, expect the paving to be excellent for awhile, and suddenly you are riding through rough grassland along the edge of farm fields. Get used to it and enjoy the solitude and the relaxed speed of 6 mph. Sometimes you are on tire tracks in the woods. Nice!
As you approach St. Mary's OH. you realize you are again in people's yards, so you go back onto Ohio Rt 66 for a bit. Go into Geiger Park and get back in the trail, see the canal boat in the center of town, and then,,,you might get lost (as I did), ask for directions, it's OK. Friendly locals. Suddenly, you are dead-ended at a culvert (just too small and wet to be reasonable for biker, but a hiker, hmmm) that goes under the divided highway. Later, you learn that you were supposed to go left at the culvert, and cycle on the grass along the highway, go under the bridge, and you are back on track. It gets nice with 40 acre lake.
After St, Mary's comes Kossuth, then Spencerville - lots of grass pedaling until you reach the adjacent gravel pit, where the the trail is paved with stone chips. Nice!
Then continue onto Delphos, which is quizzical. What do they have in mind as they newly pave the trail (in process as I write this) but come to a dead-halt in someone's backyard?
Overall, a tough and sometimes confusing path combined with the world class bicycle museum. Glad to have done it.
Very nice trail. Just the right amount of distance and a little challenging which was good since I am a bit out of shape.
This is a very nice trail system. It has some sunny and some shady areas, and keeps pretty well to Alum Creek. I have never been on this trail and was a weekend visitor. What I want to share is that I felt like the signage for the trails at the junctions was not adequate. Well, nonexistent. There were several side trails to various athletic areas and parks, but no real signage to direct the rider. I looked over the online map before venturing out. But if you don't have a map in front of you, it is easy to get turned around. I actually went up a driveway that had the same asphalt as the trail. Oops. Anyway, its not intuitive for an out-of-towner.
We use this trail many times a year to get into downtown Dayton. It is scenic and well marked.
In recent years dirt has built up on parts of the trail. PLEASE be careful after rain when the dirt turns to mud. Piqua to Peterson Road and Taylorsville Park to Rip Rap Road Park are sections that can be very muddy.
We are in our 60's and prefer paved trails, like this one. We rode from a great b&b just south of Xenia, only a few tenths of a mile from the trail, approx. 40 miles to Loveland. Then hired the Ohio Trail Shuttle to bring us back. Trail is mostly shady, wonderful scenery, wildlife, downhill to Loveland. Not many services available near the trail on this segment, except Corwin, a convenience store right next to the trail. Well maintained right of way, through pretty country. And when we got to Loveland, some great restaurants right along the trail. Certainly more folks on trail as you get closer to Cincinnati. Highly recommend this trail and thanks to all who maintain it! We also rode a small segment of the trail north from Yellow Springs but rain was threatening. YS is a cute college town with lots of amenities just west of the trail downtown. Make sure you check out the brewery along the trail just north of YS, and Youngs Dairy about 1/2 mi east of the trail for some ice cream. We will likely come back to explore other trails that cross in Xenia.
Very little shade on the trail. My bike pedometer measured it at 10.5 round trip not the 6.5 one way as app states. Just resurfaced part of the asphalt. Farmer was spraying fields along path and didn’t like riding in the chemical mist. Only saw 2 other riders on trail.
I rode 5.6 miles on an out-and-back ride on the West Bank Trail in Celina Ohio. The trail is located on the western shore of Grand Lake St. Marys in Mercer and Auglaize Counties of Ohio. The trail is flat with no elevation change. Most of the time you are riding right along the edge of the water. The West Bank Trail connects two parks, goes by the public boat launch, and passes quite a few boat docks. There are great views of the lake throughout the trail's length making it a very scenic ride.
One word of caution: the path is quite narrow in spots which could be problematic if the trail is crowded. Someone could end up in the lake.
The Franklin Township Greenway is very flat with almost no change in elevation at all. The trail surface is asphalt which is in good repair. The trail parallels and crosses over State Route 219 several times on the southern shore of Grand Lake near Celina, Ohio. Unfortunately, you don't get to see much of the lake from the trail. You really are really riding along the farm fields that surround the lake. You do get to see a number of canals where the residents and boaters dock their boats. The trail is beautiful in its own kind of way, but with few trees in the area to serve as wind breaks I can see where riders could face really strong headwinds at times. The greenway seems to have been designed for the many people of the boating community that utilize the lake. It's probably the best way to keep casual cyclists off of a busy roadway with cars traveling at high speeds.
It would be really cool if the residents of Franklin Township, Celina, St. Mary's and Mercer and Auglaize Counties could complete an off road route all the way around Grand Lake. Then you might have something worth checking out; particularly if you’re also interested in boating.
As far as the Dayton-Kettering Connector goes it is a pretty easy trail to ride. Trail may be an exaggeration, it is more like a route. Most of the this trail is an on-road route using sharrows or bike lanes with a 2 mile rail trail in the middle. The rail trail portion heads south from the University of Dayton's RecPlex and ends at Wiltshire Blvd. in Kettering. The route continues further south on residential streets and connects with other bike routes but most specifically with the Iron Horse Trail.
The Miami Valley Trails organization says that the Dayton-Kettering Connector (DKC) is an ideal commuting route for individuals working in downtown Dayton while the rail trail portion provides a gentle climb into the south suburbs, not found on any of the roadways heading the same way. I found the 1.9 mile rail trail section is a climb but not a strain. There was one additional sustained climb up Ackerman Blvd. beside climbing the rail trail when heading south. The trail is well signed with frequent bike route signs with direction arrows at turns and every other sign seemed to have the bike route number at the top of them. In this case the Dayton-Kettering Connector is Bike Route 19.
When I reached the Iron Horse Trail in Kettering I turned around and rode the back the same way I came but continued through the University of Dayton campus and followed the bike lanes on Brown and Jefferson Streets to RiverScape Metropark along the Miami River in downtown Dayton. It seems that the Dayton public has a more enlightened attitude about sharing the road with cyclists. I felt safe in the bike lanes, although I was not riding in them during rush hour. Getting back to the UD campus from RiverScape MetroPark is a bit tricky because there is no southbound bike lane on the roads you just traveled on to reach RiverScape. I suggest returning to the UD campus by traveling on the Great Miami River Recreational Trail until it rises from the river at W. Stewart Street. From there you can take a bike lane that runs parallel to Stewart Street back to Brown Street and then into campus where you need to go.
The only reason I sought out this trail was because it was listed as one of Ohio’s trails listed on TrailLink.com and it is my goal to ride every Ohio trail listed there. This trail at this point can only be considered a commuter or local recreational trail. It is only 0.7 miles long and parallels Steve Whalen Boulevard between Wyoming Street and Hamilton Avenue. I started at Highland Park off of Wyoming Street. There is parking there but it doesn’t much look like a parking lot, so be warned. The asphalt trail surface was in good shape as this trail can't be very old. However, like many urban trails there were several areas where their was broken class on the trail which could have punctured my tires.
I don’t know if this is phase one of a much larger planned pathway or route (similar to others in the Dayton area), but at this point this is such a short trail I say leave it to the local residents.
This paved rail trail probably gets its name because it follows Shawnee Creek out of Xenia, crosses the Little Miami River around Trebein, parallels the Little Beaver Creek in Beavercreek and eventually meets up with the Mad River in Eastwood Metropark. There are quite a few areas of shade along this route but it is not a constant canopy of shade like many rail trails. In particular, you will find little shade when the trail parallels U.S. Rt. 35. This trail is fairly flat — typical of a rail trail. It is wide and well maintained with very few problems in the pavement like tree root uplifting or undermining erosion.
This trail connects to many other trails in the region. In Xenia, you can connect to the Little Miami Scenic Trail as well as the Prairie Grass Trail both part of the cross-state Ohio to Erie Trail Route. There is also the Xenia-Jamestown Connector that starts at Xenia Station. In addition, there are two lesser local spurs, the Towler Road Spur and the James Ranch Connection Spur, that connect to a local park and the Greene County Fairgrounds, respectfully. As you get closer to the Eastwood Metropark in Riverside, a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, you can connect to the Iron Horse Trail, a Dayton recreational trail. In the Eastwood MetroPark you run into the Mad River Trail which will take you into downtown Dayton (and to many other trail connections) or out to Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the United States Air Force Museum.
I have only two minor complaints about this trail. First, there are 4 road crossings in quick succession as you leave Xenia Station over roads where caution is required. Secondly, I would also suggest making sure that you have plenty to drink on hot summer days as there are few places to find or buy something to drink without going off the trail. There is water and Gatorade available through vending machines at Beavercreek Station (pretty much at the trail’s midpoint) but half the selections in the vending machines there were sold out when I was there early in the day. I’m not sure how often those machines are serviced, so be prepared on really hot days.
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