You can get on this trail either at Huber Park or Vet's Memorial Park, both in Shakopee. The eastern end is now paved & goes across the MN river into West Bloomington where there are mountain bike trails. There is new pavement in front of Valley Fair & Murphy's Landing. The trail then goes along the river over to Chaska which can sometimes be flooded out.

Also, from Huber Park you can get on a new segment of trail & go across a much wider span of MN river and go up Flying Cloud towards Eden Prairie. Also, there is a connection to the LRT with a new river bridge and much new road construction in that area. Shakopee has many good paved trails in town to connect to if you want to stretch out your ride.

Beyond Chaska you can now go to Carver on a short paved trail. Going to Jordan or Belle Plaine is on poorly maintained dirt trails--maybe good for mountain or fat tire bike?

Took advantage of our unseasonably warm November weather to try out this trail. The trail was in excellent shape, smooth and mostly flat. Rode from where trail picks up again on the west side of Waterville to a little past Madison Lake, and back, about 28.5 miles.

Trail disintegrates just west of Lester Prairie. Hopefully it will be paved (someday) to Hutchinson--and hook up with Luce Line Trail. Trail in great condition and empty on a beautiful fall day.

The trail was great!!! Not alot of people so very peaceful

I average about 3,500 miles per year of Rollerblading on the Dakota Rail Trail. Today I just got my 125th day in a row of Rollerblading a marathon. I'm hoping to get to 150, but it's getting more challenging as all the leaves fall and cover the trail completely. The Hennepin County portion of the trail is beautifully maintained from Hunter's Trail to Wayzata. The west portion to Lester Prairie is horribly maintained for Rollerblading with jarring trail patches, and tons of rocks, sticks, and leaves.

The pavement around the lake was in good condition. A section was thru city streets but marked. In the south east is Mable Wood Park, on a huge wooded hill for hiking.

I rode the full length of the trail and it is all pretty nice. A lot of it is shaded, but there are some sunny areas also. Beautiful scenery including woods, wetlands, farms and small towns. I didn't stop places this time, but I saw nice looking restaurants and ice cream shops for future stops. The first 8 miles from Wayzata has more intersections, some you will likely need to stop/wait at. There's one near the 8 mile marker where the trail turns onto a narrow sidewalk before crossing a busy road. That one was pretty annoying, but the others were only slightly inconvenient. After that, though, the intersections became less frequent and less busy. The western part of the trail (starting in Lester Prairie) was very smooth pavement and there were not many other people. Overall it was a great ride!

I rode this trail as it branched off of the Cannon Valley Trail going into Cannon Falls. The first segment looks like an ancient city trail that is very narrow with rough pavement. After a mile or so it sends you into a little park on dirt, down a hill then back up on gravel. I bypass this by going through the parking lot and then the road where the new segment starts which has smooth pavement and a few hills with an underpass under Hwy 52 and a view of the Cannon River.

This leads to a nice park/campground--Lake Byllesby. It has recently been re-modeled. There are a few old sites along the lake that have shade & grass. The rest of the new sites (over 60 of them) have no shade or grass, just an asphalt pad, some gravel, electricity and a grill or fire pit. It has very nice bathroom facilities. The swimming beach was closed when I was here in late July, although you can swim on the Goodhue side of the park.

As far as the rest of the trail goes there are some huge gaps once you're done with Northfield and Cannon Falls. Some day when it's all connected it will be worth the extra effort.

Rode Faribault to Waterville. Waterville to Mankato is closed for construction. Trail was in great condition. Trail is relatively flat. Majority of the 15 miles is shaded due to tree canopy which makes it a cool ride. Really enjoyed this trail.