Overall, trail was great! There are a few spots where some of the gravel was deeper and more difficult to navigate but our hybrid bikes handled this okay. The area around the trail was very well maintained and is in a very beautiful area along lake Shelbyville. We grabbed breakfast in town before our ride but would recommend parking at the visitors center (near the dam) to begin your ride. The trail is not marked in town.

We started our ride at the Pana end of the trail with plans to have lunch in Taylorville. The trail was an easy, flat ride with short sections of bumpy trail but our hybrid bikes handled this well. Near Taylorville there was a lot of debris (branches/leaves) on the trail including a fallen tree. Despite being able to get around that, we ran into the bridge closure that prevented us from grabbing lunch in Taylorville. Very disappointing!

The trail was rough and not really suited for road bikes. Where they patched it with ground up asphalt is very rough and not packed well and sucks you’re tires and pulls you.

The trail from Mattoon to a trucking company looks good but from the trucking company toward Charleston which is where we started the trail was not good for road bikes. They have used what appears to be recycled asphalt and it is rough and not packed down well.

My daughter and I took a quick walk down the trail from parking at National to the other parking area where the new trail may start at move east. My question is why are the No Trespassing signs still up on the levees? Trail conditions where great but it leads one to wonder if it’s really an open trail. I will be photographing in this area and look forward to more access into the area.

A waste of time . It is also not the safest area in Champaign

Parked at the Savoy rec center and rode North. The North side had road construction going on so was closed. Hopefully it’ll be open by this fall. We loved this trail and just wished it was longer. They could extend it a couple more miles to the South.

We parked at the Buffalo Trace parking lot just north of I-74 on Route 47. Direct trail access at this point. We rode it west to the end, which is about a mile through beautiful prairie. (There is parking at the west end also.)
Then we returned and rode it all the way to the east end, which pops you out into a residential neighborhood. (It's only 3.3 miles total.)
But the real beauty of this trail is that at about the midpoint it connects seamlessly with the Mahomet city trail in the woods at the golf course. From there you can ride south and end up in Mahomet at Route 47 and then ride north up the east shoulder back to the Buffalo Trace parking lot. The Route 47 shoulder is a full car width , paved and perfectly safe. So, you can ride a complete loop back to your car. Nice!
A really nice, fully paved circuit through prairie, forest and town.

Trail is in great condition. Paved at all the grade crossings.
The Walmart parking lot at the west end is a great place to start and finish.
The little downtown in St. Joseph has a cafe with specialty coffee's, sandwiches and ice cream.
You can ride into Urbana from the Walmart to the west on Main Street. It is clearly marked with a dedicated bike lane, and where the lane doesn't exist there are signs that say "Bikes can take the entire lane".
Overall, a very safe and well designed trail.