Hello, New Castle…
- 11.22.09
- Trail News, Trail Reviews, construction, New Castle, Ohio, river, Stavich, train
- No Comments
Impressive. The Stavich Bike Trail is back.
With wife and little man off visiting relatives prior to Thanksgiving, I decided to give this unsung trail another shot. I tried going down in May after being really sick and only got about five miles in when I ran into a construction crew repaving. But, good news, because this trail needed some serious TLC. It used to have pot sinkholes that would swallow a wheel and definitely dismount you if you had the misfortune of aiming for one.
I searched the web over the summer and had trouble even locating contact information to find out if construction was complete, which made me nervous that maybe they never finished. Stavich doesn’t seem to have the local community backing that many other trails do, maybe I’m wrong? (Please if someone is reading this who knows more, correct me in a comment!) So I took a chance today, since a ride this late in the season is really bonus time anyway.
PA side is completely repaved. Gorgeous job too. What a difference. I am definitely adding Stavich back into my rotation of trails. It’s on an old inter-urban trolley line that used to run from Youngstown to New Castle, so it’s neat in three ways. One, the trolley apparently didn’t need the flat grade of a mainline rail, so there’s a few semi-serious grades for a rail trail. The new pavement makes those grades a LOT more tolerable. Two, you ride within about two car lengths at times next to an active rail line. I’ve never ridden Stavich without seeing a train. Today I saw three, one that had to have 50 cars on it. Really neat. Three, which I’ve already made mention of, it crosses the OH/PA border, which is a neat twist.
There’s a little town right on the trail (Lowellville) with a restaurant and convenience store. In fact, if you’re coming into Lowellville, you might think the trail is done, because it empties out onto Liberty St. It’s not done. Ride on Liberty for a fair bit - you will see the trail continue at the end of the street. There’s hardly any traffic in Lowellville, but it has plenty of picnic tables, so if you want to plan for that, it’s a great place for lunch!
Today was a good freebie ride. It’s gotta be the last of the season, indian summer can’t hold on for much longer. I like the late fall rides because without the leaves, the trees reveal a landscape rich in features you wouldn’t normally see. I followed the Mahoning River (the Mighty Mahoning as my 12th Grade English teacher wrote in a poem) along most of the route today. During the summer, you don’t see it too well.
And as always, sorry for the infrequent posts. This is really an RSS kind of a blog rather than something you should visit on a regular basis expecting updates.

