Review Date
October 16, 2008

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Aerobic Difficulty
 3 of 5

Technical Difficulty
 1 of 5

Ridden Trail:
Once a week

Reviewed by: mcdbagds ,  Cross Country Rider

Summary:
October 2008 - I bike this trail with a buddy twice a week. We tend to use mountain bikes, but you can use a road bike up to just south of the village of Kewaskum at Sandy Ridge Road without problems, depending on your setup. It does get a bit dusty once you pass Lighthouse lane going north so you will want to wash it off when you return, but the ride is fairly easy on the hard packed crushed limestone screenings. They just resurfaced the Kewaskum segment early this Summer with a bit courser crushed limestone, but it is getting packed down better now. The trail is paved blacktop from Russco road to just north of Barton Road in West Bend.

Recommended Route:
If you start at Russco Road, you can park on an access road just to the west of the trail head. There is an old railroad fueling tank 100 yards south or so, and lots of room to park. You get about a 25 mile ride if you go from Russco to the Fond du Lac county line and back. It is like a breath of fresh air to hit the paved part in West Bend for your last 5 miles. There are several bridges over the Milwaukee River, adjacent fields and wooded areas that hold lots of deer, rabbits, hawks, and on one occasion, we saw a mother Red Fox with her kits running on the trail. There are also several road crossings where you need to be careful at Paradise, Decorah, Hwy 33 (Washington Street), and Barton in West Bend. Highway 28 in Kewaskum is another one you will want to slow down for. The trail gets a little tighter past the Fond du Lac county line, but there are some areas where vegetation was coming through near Eden. All in all, it is a very enjoyable trail, and has something for every level of biker. I tend to be more interested in distance and endurance than skillful traversal with the mountain bike.

Other recommended trails in the same area:
The best trail in the area for distance training is the Inter Urban trail that runs from Brown Deer road in Milwaukee county to Oostburg passing completely through Ozaukee County, and is 100% paved black top, with only a few spots where you travel on paved roads or through a small subdivision. Bring your best road bike for this trail. There are some long hills to climb in and out of Port Washington, but once you get north of there, there are rolling hills and long segments where you can get your average speed up quite a bit. We tend to use the angle parking provided where Hwy 60 meets the Milwaukee River in Grafton and hit the trail a block or two west of there and go north. The Milwaukee Ale house is just to the south of Hwy 60 there as well. If you go from that point to Oostburg, and back you will have a 50 mile ride. This trail also goes through Cedarburg, one of the more quaint little towns with lots of activities for browsing little shops along main street -- so if you are in to biking, and your lady is not, she might find something fun to do there. Going south, you also go right by Libby Montana, where you can yell "Neidermeyer!"