I had forgotten what a nice ride this can be! I did a little under 14 miles roundtrip, and I'd say less than 4 miles of that is "urban" - the rest is nice paths through the woods, or along parks. It's not terribly hilly, but there are enough that you get a few fun downhill coasts.
I parked near the Alcoa City Offices off of Hall Rd. This is right after where Hall splits off from Alcoa Highway. I like parking here because it's really a short trip for me, maybe 25 minutes from my apartment. From here you actually have 3 different choices - you can go west to the new pedestrian bridge, southwest down to Maryville, or northeast up to the Alcoa Middle and Alcoa High School area. Today I opted to check out the new bridge, and small run of greenway past it, then headed down to Maryville. The bridge was actually pretty nice - the grade of the ramp was pretty easy to handle on the bike, for which I was thankful. The greenway section after it is fairly short, but T's into a new subdivision with only a couple of houses, so I did a little bit of street riding up there as well.
Here's the route I took (apologies for the Bing map, that's what Garmin uses now):
As I said, it was a really nice ride. I got out a little late, so it was already starting to heat up. I estimate about 50% of that route is at least somewhat shaded, and a lot of that is well shaded, so it wasn't too bad, but I'd really like to try getting out around 08:30 and seeing just how nice it is then. By the time I was out, there were already a decent number of people out walking and riding, although definitely not so many that it was a bother.
Oh! I almost ran over this guy at Bicentennial Park!
Luckily, he seemed to have a good idea of how to get back to the water, so I let him carry on his merry little way.
If you're interested in biking or walking this greenway, I suggest taking a look at this map from the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization.
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