Williamsburg Bike Trails!

Exploring Bike Trails

My daughter's new house in Williamsburg has easy access to beautiful interconnected bike trails. I recently spent four wonderful days exploring them. Here is the Powhatan Creek Trail passing just a few feet from her back yard.

The winding Powhatan Creek Trail has a long wooden section arching over low lying wetlands.

Near its southern end the Powhatan Creek Trail heads through open fields towards its intersection with the Virginia Capital Trail.

Williamsburg and Jamestown are rich in history. The trail in the image above comes to a T-junction with the Virginia Capital Trail. I turned left at the junction and came upon some of the many historical signs along the route towards Jamestown.

The Jamestown Settlement Historical Museum and the entrance to Jamestown National Park are less than 3 miles from my daughter's house. Across the street from the museum's parking lot I came upon the start of the Virginia Capital Trail whose path is shown on the map below. The bottom map shows how the trail will eventually connect Jamestown to Richmond. I turned around at the zero mile marker shown below and started pedaling toward Richmond.

At first, the Virginia Capital Trail passes beside open farm land and horse pasture. It then winds through some woods toward a quarter mile-long wooden bridge over wetland. The next three pictures show this portion of the journey.

The path continues through pleasant pines toward Route 5 where the trail turns left and heads west.

For the next few miles the trail runs parallel to Route 5.

Only a few miles later, just over 6 miles from the start, the trail comes upon the Chickahominy River and the polysyllabic Wowinchapuncke sign. Here's the scene approaching the Chickahominy River Bridge.

The trail goes over the bridge and offers some turnouts to view the river from the bridge.

Unfortunately, the trail ends just beyond the Chickahominy River. Its construction continues along Route 5 in several places. Some segments have been completed, and travelers on Route 5 can see where other segments are being cleared and prepared for paving. Eventually, the Virginia Capital Trail will stretch more than 40 miles between Jamestown and Richmond.

Closer to Williamsburg the bike trail intersects several portions of the unpaved Greensprings Interpretive Trail, a trail for hiking and nature observation. The whole area is a hiking and biking paradise. Three different entrances to the Greensprings Trail are shown below.

My wonderful new bike leaning against the railing of a quarter mile-long wooden bridge.

On future visits to Williamsburg I hope to continue exploring ways to combine the bike trails with several low traffic subdivisions in order to get longer rides. Williamsburg is flat compared to hilly Lynchburg. I used only 3 different gears during my Williamsburg excursions.