Fort Wayne, Indiana has had bike trails for quite a while now. They started out with trails along Fort Wayne’s 3 rivers … the St. Joe Pathway to the north, the St. Marys Pathway running north and south then turning to the east, and the Maumee Pathway to the east. The St. Joe River and the St. Marys river converge together forming the Maumee River. The trails total 21 miles in length. Then other trails have been added thru the years and are still being built. Right now there are a total of 165 miles of trails. 110 miles of the trails are within the city limits. The city offers both paper maps and online information including trail maps, trail rules, sidewalk and trail ordinances, trail closures, trail construction status reports, and various trail information.

There are also some special trails with more being built. Here is a tree canopy (or tree top) trail near downtown built along the St. Marys River.

We have a trail which is part of a State Visionary Trail. Our section is called the Pufferbelly Trail. It is completely built with a couple of exceptions and is about 13 miles long. The counties to the north and south of us have not built their portions yet. The name Pufferbelly comes from the nickname steam locomotives used to be affectionately known as. This trail is a rail to trail conversion project. The planned 82 mile trail when completed has both a website and a Facebook page.

Trails are open from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily for your enjoyment. The trails are built by the city of Fort Wayne and maintained by the city. There is also a separate organization known as Fort Wayne Trails which helps as advocacy and fund raiser. They also offer their assistance during events.

I mentioned that the Pufferbelly Trail is completely built with a couple of exceptions. One of those exceptions is a connector across a busy 6 lane highway. A bridge up and over the highway is planned and will be built fairly soon. Obviously that is an expensive project and there is opposition to it. Some people think it is wasteful and that the money could be better spent. Of course, they are anti-trail people. Here is an artist’s rendering of this bridge.

As you can see it will involve some long inclined ramps to get up and over the highway. At first they had planned on building the crossing at ground level but the Sheriff’s Dept. would not approve it. I am glad somebody had some common sense and concern for the safety of trail users.

So if you are ever in the Fort Wayne area consider riding the Fort Wayne Trails. It is best to ride in the summer months than it is in the winter months.

Of course, Spring and Autumn offer special beauty.

I live and ride in Fort Wayne, Indiana where we have lots of paved trails to ride on. Our trails have lot of bumps and holes as do our streets. And they rarely ever get repaired or fixed … at least not properly. And even if they do fix them properly the repair doesn’t seem to last very long. Even when they do work on them they frequently change a hole into a bump instead of smooth flat pavement. Our streets have some horrible pot holes and they rarely get repaired either. It is impossible to ride one’s trike without hitting them.

Over the years the damage done to my trike has cost me a few thousand dollars in total repair cost. Just recently I hit a bad bump on the trail where they thought they had repaired it. Their repair was as bad afterwards as it was before. I rode over it and it not only blew out my rear tire causing it to go completely flat instantly, but it also did something to damage my rear wheel sprockets. It cost me around $500 in all to make the repair as I had to buy a new e-motor wheel. By the way, I just rode over that area on the trail yesterday and they finally did something to improve it. It took them a very long time after I reported it.

I ride a 2009 Catrike Trail tadpole trike which I love. It now has a 2013 frame as it was replaced under warranty. It has been a great trike although I much prefer the 2009 “space frame”.

I found out the Catrike wheels are not able to hold up to Fort Wayne’s holes and bumps. I have had several wheels damaged to where they needed to be replaced and I have had broken spokes galore. I bought a couple new wheels from Catrike to replace the damaged ones, but learned that they just don’t hold up so I stopped buying them and in their place I bought some heavier duty BMX rims and had them laced into my Catrike hubs. The cost was nearly the same as buying new Catrike wheels. These BMX wheels have been great!! No more damaged wheels and only one broken spoke over all these years since I changed wheels. Now with over 174,450 miles on this trike I can report that it is still going strong. What a testimony of the quality of Catrike!

So if you are dealing with the same problems I deal with you may want to look into switching to heavier duty BMX wheels. I sure wish Fort Wayne would do a lot better with all these bumps and holes. I would love to live somewhere else where this problem doesn’t exist. I don’t know where that would be … probably someplace that doesn’t have winter. I would love that!

P.S. – If you come to Fort Wayne to ride the trails you might want to bring a “kidney belt” like the ol’ Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycle riders used to wear.