When completed, the North Coast Inland Trail will extend from Lorain to Toledo, OH, over 100 miles. There are still a few section yet to be completed. I started my ride today in Elyria at the Gateway trail head (corner of Gateway and Third). Nice parking and easy trail access. I had originally planned to stage at Cascade Park, but it is under construction – looks like it will be a wonderful place when renovations are completed.
The 1st 500 yards is on the road, so at first, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the trail quickly transitions to a well paved, scenic ride.
It was a straight shot of 10 miles to Oberlin and then on to Kipton.
Oberlin:
The unique round brick building, The Gas-Holder Building was built with some 300,000 bricks in 1889 by the Oberlin Gas Lighting Company
There is a short “on-road” section just west of Oberlin, ride along a golf course.
Road Art – very cool:
Kipton:
Old Railway Markers all along the trail along with nice new mileage markers every 1/2 mile. For scale, the old limestone markers are more the 5 ft tall.
The last 1 1/2 of the 16 miles transition to heavy gravel until this section of the trail ended. I beleive this was the Huron Co. line
There were trail makers pointing “up the road” but I was at my time limit and the skies were turning ominous (again it seems). Made the turnaround.
32 mile round trip. Nice trail. Use Oberlin and Kipton as a refueling point, no water on the trail.
Keep on biking BikeOhio1000
BikeOhio1000 