When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
August 29, 2025
One of our favorite outdoor activities is riding our bikes on the many rail trails across the country. For this ride, we chose a trail a bit closer to our home in southeastern Pennsylvania. Actually, it's a couple of new to us trails since officially, one ends where the other begins.
We started our ride on the 3.2 mile-long Upper Bucks (County) Rail Trail at the Veterans Park Trailhead in Quakertown. The trail follows the old Bethlehem Branch of the SEPTA rail line as it makes its way north to Coopersburg in neighboring Lehigh County. The trail is mostly crushed stone, but features an 800 foot-long boardwalk over a marshy area.
The trail is part of the Circuit Trails Network, a growing trail system across Greater Philadelphia with a goal of 800 miles of connected trails. It's also part of the Highland Trail, which will eventually stretch across 13 counties in Pennsylvania's Highland country.
The trail was paved for a short section through Veterans Park as we made our way past the park's playground and athletic fields. Just after the trail sloped upward into a woodland it turned to gravel. We passed through the communities of Shelly and Melody Lakes before crossing meadows along a power line and then back into the woods. We could faintly hear traffic noise from the nearby route 309, but it didn't bother us.
Just south of Coopersburg we rode across a boardwalk over a wetland and passed by an interpretive sign explaining the region's geological history. The trail slopes down slightly as it passes by quarries and concrete plants before arriving in Coopersburg and linking to the Saucon Rail Trail.
The Saucon Rail Trail follows the bed of the former North Pennsylvania Railroad (NPRR), which supported the industries in Coopersburg, Upper Saucon Township, Lower Saucon Township and Hellerstown. The railroad transported coal, iron ore, dry goods, groceries and grains and also provided commuter transportation. The NPRR provided a vital link from Philadelphia in the south to Bethlehem and the coal regions of the north. Later the line was used by the Reading Railroad, which later became ConRail, and eventually SEPTA. The last train to run on the line was in 1984, after which SEPTA removed the rails and ties. In 2011, the first phase of the Saucon Rail Trial between Coopersburg and Hellertown was opened.
The 7.5-mile-long trail begins at the southern edge of Coopersburg, where the Upper Bucks Trail ends. The wide crushed stone trail easily accommodates bikers and pedestrians and it's relatively level with only a 1% grade. The trail is well-marked with 6 foot wooden posts every half mile and smaller posts at each road crossing with the name of the road.
The Saucon Trail is envisioned to become part of an intercity greenway that will eventually connect the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton-Phillipsburg area with the Philadelphia metropolitan area via the Upper Bucks Rail Trail. Currently, there are plans to extend the Saucon trail at it's northern end into Bethlehem where it will connect with the South Bethlehem Greenway.
Heading north on the other side of Coopersburg, the trail passes over Tumble Brook, then by some community parks, the campus of DeSales University, and the Saucon Valley Country Club grounds. Along the way riders will find signs commemorating the different train stations along the route at Coopersburg, Center Valley, Bingen and Hellertown. There are also signs along the trail of its past history as a railroad in the form of old telegraph poles and signal towers. In addition, we passed through rock cuts and over several repurposed railroad bridges. The trail also passes by the nationally recognized "Allentown Formation", a 515 to 500 million year old dolostone rock formation of geologic interest and the Hellertown Marsh.
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Upon our arrival in Hellertown we made a short detour to the nearby Hellertown Union Cemetery where we paid our respects to a much-loved friend and ate our lunch in the shade of a tree. After returning to the trail we continued on to the trail's end at Bachman Street before heading back toward Quakertown.
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