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Print Friendly MapRickenbacker Trail begins in southern Miami and continues south along the Rickenbacker Causeway/Crandon Boulevard for nearly 9 miles, traversing the length of Key Biscayne. Along this popular route, you'll have beautiful views of Biscayne Bay, beaches, and palm trees.
Crandon Park, on the island's north end, was once a coconut plantation and is now a park of more than 800 acres. It features a pristine beach, coastal dunes, picnic areas, and an amusement center. At the south end of the island is Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, where visitors can enjoy the outdoors snorkeling, swimming, kayaking, and hiking. Indoor pursuits include a visitor center, museum, and historical lighthouse.
Parking is available at Crandon Park (6747 Crandon Boulevard) and Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park (1200 Crandon Boulevard).
Although there is a green bike lane, you can also use trail that is separated from cars. Nice trail, there is parking at Commodore Trail north-end trailhead / Alice Wainwright park. OpenSeas cafe had nice Spanish tapas and grilled seafood.
This is a great ride! Maybe not for everyone— you have a wide, smooth, bright green lane to yourself, but it is adjacent to a busy roadway. That’s plenty good for me. The state park at the end of the trail is very nice, and no traffic there.
This is by far one of the prettiest rides I’ve ever done. The scene over the water is like something out of a movie. It is a little confusing when you get down into Biscayne key because I didn’t know I was still on the path. Nevertheless there’s a bike lane and is still very pretty and feels decently safe.
If you want a more peaceful ride, detour off the main trail at Bear Cut Preserve, then take the Crandon Park roads by the beach to the lighthouse. You can visit the old zoo and see the kite surfers and not deal with so much traffic.
This is a nice ride with views of ocean and Miami skyline. Plenty of parking at the beaches and parks. Much of the trail is along the shoulder, but in the rural areas it is double lined for vehicle traffic and the bike lane is painted green, pretty cool.
The trail starts right at the base of the first big bridge out of Miami on the 913 and continues all the way to Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. The majority of the ride is on the road in a bike lane that is next to 2-3 lanes of traffic driving 30-45 miles per hour. I parked at Crandon Park and picked up the trail there and headed to Bill Baggs about 2 miles south. Once in Bill Braggs, the trail turns away from traffic and it is a beautiful ride thru the trees. The trail continues along the edge of the park where you can stop at any number of piers and enjoy the ocean view, eat at the Boater's Grill, walk along the beach and the trail ends at the lighthouse where you can take a tour and climb to the top if you are so inclined. Both Crandon Park and Bill Baggs have nice, clean restrooms and there are several places to eat in Key Biscayne if you get hungry along the trail. The fee to park at Crandon is $5 per car but there is free street parking in Key Biscayne next to the bike lane. The bike fee at Bill Baggs is $2. The wildlife other reviews have mentioned must have been staying out of the rain. Have a safe ride.
After the Road Construction is complete I would probably rate this a four star trail. Much of this trail is a bike lane on very busy roads which I am personally not comfortable with. I prefer rails to trails and Green ways. Still, the scenery and climate were wonderful. Beautiful Beach along part of the trail and a magnificent view of Biscayne Bay. My wife and I rodethe trail on December 15the and the temperature was 84 degrees:)
A must for all that love the water, boats and ocean breezes! A true escape from the city, perfect terrain for all bikes, enjoy!
Runs along Rickenbacher Causeway, beaches, parks, village of key biscayne, lighthouse. Manatees, dolphins, eagles, iguanas, peacocks, and more animals can be seen. Activities include sailboarding, kayaking, kitesailing, swimming, mountain biking at nearby virginia key, bridges to challenge cyclist.
The Rickenbacker Trail runs across the Rickenbacker Causeway and down the length of Key Biscayne. It begins at the Causeway tolls. You can park on the mainland side near Alice Wainwright Park, or across the on the other side of the tolls in the beach parking. We parked on the mainland side.
After blading past the tolls on the bike path, the trail leads through the parking lots and past the beach until it turns onto the bike path/sidewalk for the big bridge. Blading up 150' for so is hard work, but the view at the top of downtown Miami and the bay is killer. Unfortunately, you have to control your speed down the other side because the expansion joints are open, and you have to step across each one to avoid catching a wheel.
The trail continues across keys and bridges with a variety of pavement quality until it lands on Key Biscayne island. There, the trail becomes a bike lane on the side of a divided four lane highway. The cars are loud and close, but the pavement is fine.
In another mile or so, you enter the town of Key Biscayne. You can follow the bike lane straight through town, but there's not much fun to that. We took the first right on Harbor Drive and circled the town - much better! Nice sidewalks and roads and little traffic. Watch the intersections on Key Biscayne, though. They are brick, with lips around the rotaries. Lots of little gotcha's....
After skating back out to the main road along Island Drive and Knollwood Dr, we took a break for lunch in town. Then, right again on the main drag. A couple hundred yards bring you into the Bill Baggs State Park, and the skating gets much better. Wide paths, nice trees and views, few cars. You have to stop on the way in to pay $2 per person. We did a few laps and stopped at one of the beaches - great stuff!
On the way back out, we stopped on Virginia Key and did a little loop into Virginia Key Park. Even though the beaches were officially closed, we could wade around and enjoy the quiet and the sun.
Finally, a last push across the causeways and we were back. A great day - if you go straight down and back, it's 19 miles. With the loops on Harbor Drive and around the Baggs park, maybe 25. As we did it, around 30.
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