Merrell Trail — Attraction in Plainfield Charter Township

Easily my favorite bike trail in south-west Michigan. I am a novice level mountain biker, but was able to do almost the whole trail, yet I'm sure experienced bikers will find it fun and challenging as well. There are fun terrain things and bridges through trees and streams to cross. The loops sorta have themes, one loop having a lot of bridges, one a lot of jumps (if you're going fast enough) one is a Rocky challenge the whole way, etc. All of it is full of twists and turns and makes good use of the terrain. It seemed well maintained, even given the muddy conditions that had been seen prior to my visit.

One extra positive I'll add is when I went there the last time, the trailhead was closed ( for parking lot improvements, I think), but to somebody's credit, they made a drop-in from another public park just down the road and posted signs for people so they could still find the trail. This is a step above what most others would do, and was much...

Merrell Trail is one of the best mountain bike trails in West Michigan. It has a very nice flow to it for biking and just enough of a flow to it for running to make it slightly challenging. The scenery once you get back into the outer trails is great and makes for a very nice ride. There is also a good selection of obstacles here and there to enjoy while riding. It is hard to rank it in terms of other trails in the area, as some other trails have better scenery, small sections of really fun obstacles or invoke nostalgia for me. However, I would say Merrell is the most well rounded trail system I have ridden in West Michigan and does, overall, have the best flow. If you are into fat tire biking it also affords some of the best winter scenery for riding in the...

A+++. Amazing views, super well maintained, well marked...Hikers and bikers go in a different direction. It's a bidirectional trail, so depending on the day you follow either red or a yellow path. It consists of several paths which add to about 7 miles, but it's well marked so you can do a shorter distance. For biking, it's very flowy and fast, no big downhill (or uphill sections) but it amazing what creative people can achieve/ engineer. You can still go fast and get well tired on hills. There are rock gardens, bridges, man and nature made features. Don't skip Sawtooth , it will make it very interesting/technical...Definitely worth checking out, it could be your favorite trail...