How Long Is the Buckeye Trail Little Loop?

"How long is the Buckeye Trail Little Loop? Can you bike it?" One of our patrons, an avid walker and biker, was making plans to spend a few weeks in late spring or early summer going around the Little Loop of the Buckeye Trail.

The Buckeye Trail winds around the interior of Ohio. It's made up of twenty-six sections and covers around 1,444 miles altogether. The Little Loop is comprised of the Akron, Bedford, Burton, and Mogadore sections, as well as part of the Massillon section. According to a post on the www.buckeyetrail.org Trail Talk forums, the Little Loop covers 229 miles.

The official Buckeye Trail website, www.buckeyetrail.org, states that 93% of the Akron section, 68% of the Bedford Section, 41% of the Burton section, 32% of the Mogadore section, and 47% of the Massillon section are off-road, suggesting that they may not be ideal for biking. The Trail Talk forums confirmed our suspicions. When a member posted in the forum asking whether it's possible to bike sections of the trail (though not the Little Loop specifically), others discouraged them. The Buckeye Trail is intended for hiking, and biking could actually damage parts of it.

Our patron checked out Robert J. Pond's "Follow the Blue Blazes: A Guide to Hiking Ohio's Buckeye Trail," other copies of which are available through CLEVNET. For more Ohio hiking routes, Diane Stresing's "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles, Cleveland," Ralph Ramey's "50 Hikes in Ohio" and "50 More Hikes in Ohio," and "Ohio Trails and Greenways," edited by Annemarie Kuhn, can be checked out here at Newton Falls Public Library. For bike routes specifically, "Biking Ohio's Rail-Trails" is available through CLEVNET.