NJB on 5/8/2018 9:58:45 AM:
Just spent a weekend trying to ride this thing and did most of our miles on U.S. 20 instead. The trail was in poor condition from farm equipment, animals, and too much water. In places, we were riding in tire ruts because of the overgrowth. If the trail was dry, we were banged around on the wash-boarding and tire ruts. If it was wet, we were sinking in, hardly moving, and looking to see if our tires were flat or if it was just the soggy trail causing that sensation. We are experienced cyclists riding gravel bikes with tubeless 700x38 or 700x40 tires and were extremely disappointed. We’d been looking forward to the trip since January. The only thing that saved the trip was the fact that we had a driver who could pick us up and take us down the road a ways to try again and again. The only decent part of the whole trail was from Battle Creek to Norfolk – and that part was completely beautiful in addition to being well-maintained.
On another note, the people in the towns were completely wonderful and welcoming. They were sad with us that the trail was so unrideable, and tried very hard to give us suggestions for where to start on it, or other things to see while we were in the area.
From reading the other comment threads on here, it looks like we hit a bad time to be out there – heavy snows this winter seem to be the cause of all the standing water and soggy trail conditions, but the heavy equipment ruts are likely a common trail condition. With so many other choices of beautiful trails in this country, I see no reason to return to the Cowboy Trail.