This was a great trail and like other reviews stated there is one stretch of it that isn’t great, but doesn’t last long. I would personally start at Lake Phalen and ride north to the end instead of starting in St Paul.

Went with my dog and we had a blast! It goes along the creek with a lot of bridges. Really pulls you out of the city. Can’t say enough good things

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.

I parked in front of the MN Zephyr and hopped on the trail on a Sunday afternoon in mid-September. It was a sunny day, so people were out in droves. That was the ONLY drawback to this ride, as I could never really gain momentum having to stop often for pedestrians, often small children. But it was stunning! The slow climb was hardly noticed on my road bike. Where hills exist, they level out quickly. I joined the Gateway trail at the 7 mile mark and went northeast to Pine Park. Stopping at the Trail Side for a lemonade was enjoyable. It’s a nice 21 mile ride round trip trek!

Beautiful ride with a few busy street crossings, but scenery and path through woods are lovely. Downside is only the walkers who won’t go single file when the path is narrow. Appreciate the rest stops throughout the trail.

Became one of my favorites.

We parked at Brown’s Creek Park 8312 Neal Ave N, Stillwater to bike into downtown Stillwater but as we were preparing our bikes we got word of a Trump parade in Stillwater ¿¿ so we headed west instead toward Grant, MN and then NE for 4 miles to Pine Point Regional Park. On our way back we stopped at the cutest Beer Garden at Gasthaus Bavarian for a beer and pretzels and see the goats and chickens. Total trip was about 15 miles.

The trail is very nice - lots of variety of scenery. In town, neighborhoods, but also parks, prairie, river, ponds, and woods. There’s also lots of little fun detours. Makes for a nice leisurely ride. The trail is not marked particularly well, but it is t as bad as the other reviewer indicates. We used this app to stay on course (or get back on course if we Took a detour).

The path wasn’t always super well marked, but it’s not as bad as the other reviewer said. This app was VERY helpful in guiding us. Some in town, neighborhoods, prairie, woods, ponds, river - and lots of little detours to take advantage of. A very nice leisurely ride.