the trail has been extended on the southern end and now it's 9+ miles and ends at Plymouth Avenue instead of Denton Avenue

Fun ride, well maintained paved surface. Several points of interest along the water. Saw nesting bald eagles. Nice to ride away from the highway noise. Highly recommend this beautiful trail.

The paved trail is pretty flat with the exception of some bridges across busy streets. From the parking lot at the Chamber of Commerce on the Winter Haven side to the end of the trail at W. Haines Blvd in Lake Alfred is 5.1m out and 5.1 miles back. It's pretty basic, but I would like to add some suggestions to make the ride slightly more enjoyable.

1) Try and time your ride for the third Saturday of the month. There is a free water ski show on Lake Silver. The show time changes so check the website for the Cypress Gardens Ski team. I suggest that you do your ride first and hit the show on the way back into Winter Haven as the bike path goes right past the lake.

2) Instead of just dead heading out to where the trail ends in Lake Alfred, take a little detour off the path to the Mackay Gardens and Lakeside Preserve. The preserve is a better destination than just the abrupt end of the trail in downtown Lake Alfred. It's about a mile east of the trail.

3) There's not a lot of shade on the trail so stay hydrated and bring sunscreen. There is a "splash pad park" along the trail in downtown Winter Haven where you can cool off under the misters so DEFINITELY bring a change of clothes.

4) Enjoy Winter Haven at the end of your ride. Again, bring a change of clothes...and explore the downtown area. There are public restrooms for changing near the splash park for changing. They have nice restaurants, coffee shops, a brewery, antique shops for browsing, and live music on Saturdays (once Covid subsides) - It's a cool little area to walk around after your ride.

I think it's a great way to kill a Saturday afternoon if you're looking for a leisurely ride. A good portion of the trail is through industrial areas, which is to be expected as this was an old train track bed, but if you're looking for a nice 10 or so mile easy trail, this is a good option.

Beautifully laid out trail with benches strategically placed and restroom facilities. Fabulous area to view nature in all its glory!

Great little trail with plenty of shade, ample parking and spectacular sunset viewing opportunities from either of the county park trailheads.

I live 5 min from this trail and my family and I have gone bike riding and running on it. I just picked up roller blading as a way to change up my fitness. If your into biking and running this is the trail for you but if you like rollerblading I would recommend another trail. I parked in the fitness parking lot and skipped going over the bridge. I would rank the road here about 6/10 lots of cracks in the road and the pavement is uneven in most places I would assume because of tree roots but it’s still good for rollerblading. I made a right at the crossroads to head toward the dump. This part of the trail is terrible. Very rough for rollerblading.

Really nice bike trail, polite people on the trail, and not too crowded today. The amenities were very nice to have for quick pull over breaks.

FFYI - was there on the weekend. The start of the trail on W Cypress St is closed, suggest you park in Courtney Campbell parking sites to walk the later part of the trail

Completed the largo to Clearwater section and detoured to the beach for lunch. We drove from Bradenton and parked at Scott Taylor park -It had bathrooms and connects to the trail. Will definitely do this again but wanted to share how to get there because I looked for others that might have detoured to the beach for lunch and didn't see exactly how to do it. Follow the trail from Largo to Clearwater and take a left at turner street. You will see the sign that says "to beach" follow that! ( we didn't do that and ended up riding with traffic) It has a paved sidewalk with a yellow strip on the side with signs to show you the way. You also mostly stay off the road this way. Also--this will keep you away from traffic on this side that goes over the Clearwater bridge. When you get to just before the roundabout- use the crosswalk to walk over to the right side of the road and take the roundabout north. We wanted to have lunch right on the beach at frenchys Rockaway grill. You are on the sand with umbrellas! It was magical. Turns out there are several frenchys restaurants - so go for the "rockaway grill". There was also the Palm Pavillion restaurant but it has a patio and you aren't directly on the sand. This was a decent ride and the only hard part was the hill up the bridge- we walked some of it. Not that bad but we were out of shape. We originally were thinking we biked about 7 miles round trip. Turns out it was 13 total. We were shocked because it didn't feel that long. The ride is close to one hour each way. Not including lunch- which we spent about 1.5 hours! We didn't want to leave it was so perfect. I hope this helps someone who was like me looking for help to plan a a detour to the beach. Definitely doing this again! bridge.