This trail used to have some gravel but no longer..., it’s all asphalt now. It is a nice little jaunt to Mattoon and back. There is no shade except under I-57 near Mattoon. Wildflowers are beautiful. There are access points from the trail to the Charleston Country Club ( golf course) and Douglas/Hart Nature Center just outside of Mattoon. Port

This trail has been greatly improved and is now asphalt from Mattoon to Charleston.

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!

Very nice paved 12 mile trail from Centennial Park to Irwin bridge road the SVT has a lot of tree coverage. Has limited parking so but several access points. The trail highlight is the bridge that crosses Sangamon River which a young Abraham Lincoln navigated. You can ride on the road 2 miles to Athens,Il on the northern end of the trail.

Very nice paved 12 mile trail from Centennial Park to Irwin bridge road the SVT has a lot of tree coverage. Has limited parking so but several access points. The trail highlight is the bridge that crosses Sangamon River which a young Abraham Lincoln navigated. You can ride on the road 2 miles to Athens,Il on the northern end of the trail.

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.

Access to the trail is easy and I picked the West end trail head in Mattoon. I parked at Peterson Park where there are many shaded parking spots. The start of the trail is one block west and one block north of the park. The trail starts off paved and once out of town is crushed gravel. The trail is pretty well maintained and used quite a bit, but there were still a few sections where my comfort bike got a little out of sorts in deep gravel. Overall though, the condition of the trail was good. The trail is pretty flat and there are only a couple of places along the route where it is necessary to cross roads. The scenery is very peaceful and at one section, the trail cuts through a country club - so you may be sharing the trail in that section with a golfer or two... Both Mattoon and Charleston offer many opportunities for dining, so you won't go hungry! I will definitely be back and will use this trail for 50 mile rides in the future.