Why doesn't Tennessee have more rails-to-trails bicycle routes? | Mike Strange

Today, I’m singing the praises of Ohio.

Not because I grew up in Kentucky rooting for the Cincinnati Reds and visiting old Crosley Field.

Not because I also grew up dying to get home from church on Sunday to watch the Cleveland Browns (before the Bengals existed, we got the Browns on Cincinnati TV).

Not because I’ve been riding the ferry to the Lake Erie islands for 35 years to hang out with the Ohio branch of the family, watching my kids grow up to love it as much as I do.

Not because Ohio gave Ray Mears, Don DeVoe, Len Kosmalski, Tom Boerwinkle, Jon Higgins, Terry Crosby and Howard Bayne to Tennessee basketball. Or Chuck Webb, Michael Munoz, Roland James, Dick Evey and Jeremy Lincoln to UT football.

Not because the Vols would never have become Wide Receiver U. without Tim McGee, Anthony Hancock and Peerless Price.

And not because of Cincinnati chili (I like mine five-way).

I’m saluting Ohio for its great rails-to-trails bicycle route network – pay attention, Tennessee.

Pedaling a bicycle has been my primary fitness activity for several decades, on Knoxville’s streets, greenways and rural roads.

I’m just back from another visit with the family on Middle Bass Island in Lake Erie. The last few years, I’ve made time both going and coming for a ride on one of the rails-to-trails paths that crisscross Ohio.

Sometime in the 20^th century, enlightened thinkers started repurposing out-of-use railroad lines (and canal towpaths) into biking and hiking routes. Some are paved, some crushed gravel.

Because they are old rail lines, the grade is gentle if not flat. It makes for great riding and walking, safe from distracted motorists.

The Ohio to Erie Trail runs 326 miles from Cincinnati to Cleveland. There are another 93 miles on the Greater Miami Trail around Dayton and a dozen more rails-to-trails around the state.

I’ve hit five segments and look forward to more, particularly in Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of Cleveland.

I’ll bet a bunch of local bicyclists and walkers/joggers join me in wishing we had rails-to-trails opportunities here in East Tennessee.

For whatever reasons, Tennessee has a limited offering. There’s the Tweetsie Trail, a 10-mile segment from Johnson City to Elizabethton. A few miles over here, a couple miles way out there.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could ride an extended route, say from Chattanooga to Knoxville? And even beyond, up to the Tri-Cities?

I don’t pretend to comprehend the logistics and obstacles. I do know there’s a river valley from here to there.

Ohio’s relative flatness is conducive. I get that. But other areas that aren’t flat have developed extensive and popular rails-to-trails routes.

I’ve ridden segments of the 78-mile Greenbrier River Trail in West Virginia. The 240-mile Katy Trail crosses Missouri, mostly along the banks of the Missouri River.

From Washington, D.C., you can travel 184 miles west along the old C&O Canal to Cumberland, Maryland, from where you can add another 150 miles on the Great Allegheny Passage to Pittsburgh.

Rails-to-trails development doesn’t just benefit bicyclists. We spend money. I do an overnight in Abingdon, Virginia, on the Virginia Creeper trail at least once a year: hotel, lunch, dinner, brewery.

On this recent trip through Ohio, I partook in the commerce generated in the village of Yellow Springs near Dayton, and in Loveland, northeast of Cincinnati − trailside breweries, restaurants, ice-cream shops.

It’s a good scene, a community enrichment. Some day in Tennessee, maybe.

Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Rails-to-trails bicycle routes are lacking in Tennessee