Find the top rated bike trails in Southbridge, whether you're looking for an easy short bike trail or a long bike trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a bike trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
Was visiting the area and am so happy I got my gravel bike out to do this trail. As others have mentioned, it is very, very well maintained and quite smooth, enabling fast riding (I rode the entire trail as listed). As a former rail, this trail has nice and gradual elevation changes and has cool features like the tunnels and bridges. I'd highly recommend and hope to be back for another spin soon.
Had a great evening bike ride out at the Windsor Locks Canal trail earlier this month (Aug, '25). The trail is paved, and as others have mentioned, it is not super smooth in some areas where the tree roots are pushing the asphalt up but can be navigated pretty easily. I was riding my gravel bike setup with 42mm tires and was able to go quite fast - averaging 15mph on the ride so it really was not that beat up / bad.
The scenery on the river is very nice, and the canal on the other side was also fun - lots of wildlife to see. Would recommend if in the area!
We started at Walpole after searching for the trailhead parking lot finally parked our car thanks to the locals at the Irving station. We almost didn’t recognize the trail because it was grass. There were no markings and we found ourselves initially at the river at the boat launch because we didn’t realize that was the trail we were following. After backtracking, we followed the other grass trail toward Keene. Although there were portions that were dirt and gravel, the 9 mile ride that we managed to cover at 6 miles an hour with primarily grass. After an hour and a half, we realize we are only halfway to our destination of Keene and we turned back.. I recommendation would be not to start in Wall Paul, but to start and keen where the trail is paved
Short for bike, nice views, benches and even a real train.
June 6th 2025
The Mrs and I rode this beautiful trail from North Hampton to just short of Belchertown, and back.
The weather was great and the trail is mostly shaded, so the ride was superb.
I'd have no objection to doing it again.
The claim of this being a 61 mile trail is very deceptive. Almost 40 miles of this trail is nearly unrideable except for mountain bikes (and even that would be unpleasant). We are experience riders and were on hybrid bikes with wide tires and front suspension. And while our plan was to cycle 40 miles from Willimantic to E. Hampton, we only did the first 10 mile section from Willimantic to James L. Goodwin State Forest.
The trail started out as just OK, but deteriorated in less than 2 miles. After crossing S. Brook Rd, the trail the trail was extremely gnarly and super overgrown. When we reached Goodwin State Forest, we were so happy to bail out and call it quits! Luckily, we had a SAG vehicle with us so we weren't forced to cycle back over the same awful trail.
Be warned, the entire trail we rode from Willimantic to Goodwin Forest was large, loose gravel, and the scenery is incredibly boring. There are places where the trail is extremely rough. At S. Brook Rd. the trail becomes unrideable, expect by maybe some die-hard mountain bikers. We used our SAG van to pop into other points along the trail from Goodwin to E. Hampton the trail only seemed to get even worse.
Honestly, just a really unpleasant ride.
My husband I decided to ride this trail on our visit to Boston. We parked at 31 McKenn Street in Waltham and rode in towards Boston, then crossed the river to ride back on the other side. First, I'll start with the positives. It has areas with nice shade and the views along the river are neat. Now for the negatives. The trail boasts it is all asphalt. It is not. There were many spots with packed dirt surface. Even though I don't like riding on anything but asphalt or concrete, this at least was pretty smooth and level. NOT compared to the badly maintained asphalt and concrete. The vegetation needed to be trimmed, the path was NOT marked at all (luckily my husband had a map on his phone), many sections were very narrow, not wide enough to have two bikes pass and the asphalt had many cracks that I had to be careful to watch for. Sorry but whoever has the contract to maintain this trail is falling down on the job. Boston is such a neat city so I won't let this trail color our experience as totally bad, but you couldn't pay me to ride this trail again.
Trail is well maintained, very few bumps, and flat. It's listed as 6.6 miles long but I clocked it at closer to 7.5 miles. I gave it 4 stars because it's not really a very scenic trail.
We (5) Friends Have Biked This Trail in It’s Sections from E. Hampton to Willimantic for Many Years. We Have Always Considered it to be 4-5 Star Rated, (For a Gravel Trail). Since 2015, We Have Switched to E-Bikes which makes the Trail 3x more FUN !! Having the Best of Both Sun & Shady Sections, It Has Only One small Section of about 300’ Near the Start leaving E.Hampton Where it’s sandy & .Loose
rode trail july 28, 25 from Winchendon - slight uphill, going south to Gardner. Adding mile markers would be nice ! and directions at N.Ashburnham Rd to Old Gardner Rd. Newly paved from entrance off
Old Gardner Rd to Gardner town line. Path to avoid watery underpass was paved on one side of street.
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