Cumberland River Bicentennial Trail

In mid-September 2013, we drove out to Ashland City, Tennessee to ride our bicycles on the paved half of the eight mile Cumberland River Bicentennial Trail.  We started at the Mark's Creek trailhead just west of town.  A small paved parking area is located just off of Chapmansboro Road about 700 feet southwest of the intersection with TN 12 or North Main Street.  The trail follows the route of the abandoned Tennessee Central Railroad. 

The trail is wide and paved

The Turkey Junction comfort station is about one mile from the Mark's Creek trailhead

The bridge at Turkey Junction is one of  several timber trestles spanning creeks in the area

At about 3 inches, this is likely the worst transition from bridge to asphalt

Another bridge along the route

An embayment that flows into Sycamore Creek

Bridge over Sycamore Creek

Looking downstream at Sycamore Creek

Parking at Sycamore Harbor trailhead

While the trail website states that this section of the trail is accessible from both the Mark's Creek and Sycamore Harbor trailheads, I would not advise anyone using or pushing a wheelchair to use the Sycamore Harbor trailhead for a couple of reasons.  First, the parking area is across the road from the trailhead and in the middle of an S-curve that limits visibility.  Second, once you have crossed the road, there is a fairly steep grade from the road up to the trail.  The railroad once had a bridge over the road, but it was removed long ago.  Replacing the bridge is most likely cost prohibitive, but it would definitely improve safety.  We did not ride the second half of the trail, known as the Eagle Pass section.  This section is packed gravel and seemed to be more of a hiking trail due to the grass growing through the gravel.  This isn't meant as a complaint, only a comment that the city parks department cannot do everything trail users like me might want with the limited funds they have available.  The city has collaborated with the Tennessee Parks and Greeenways Foundation and the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy to receive grants and otherwise leverage the available funds to create and maintain this wonderful linear park.  

On the return trip to Mark's Creek, I recorded some very amateurish video with a camera mounted on the handlebars of my bike.  The first video shows the trail approaching and crossing Sycamore Creek.  While I had not met a single person on the mile approaching the bridge, I met eight people on the bridge.  The second video is just a bit further along and shows the long trestle and one of the many picnic tables along the route.  Even though this was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in mid-September, we didn't meet anyone along the route of the second video.  At about 90 seconds each, these are both fairly long videos for a blog post.

The trail website is http://www.cumberlandrivertrail.org.