r/MountainstoSeaTrail • u/TheKid1995 • Apr 17 '26

Which segments can be done fully on bike?

I’m section hiking the MST, planning to knock it out one segment at a time. Since there’s so much road walking in the Piedmont and coastal sections, I’m going to try and knock out some of those on a bike. But looking at some of them, the long road-walking stretches are broken up by short sections of trail, which would make it inconvenient to have a bike with me. Like segment 9 has the Haw River section right in the middle, so I’d have to get off my bike, hike, and either go back to get it or pay someone to shuttle it to the other end.

Are any segments fully bikeable via roads, or segments where all the trail sections allow biking?

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u/NeuseRvrRat Apr 18 '26

I think Segment 15 may have no sections that are closed to bikes. I have ridden a bike on all of that stuff in Holly Shelter. Check that one out.

There are several where the no-bikes-allowed trails are so short, you could easily just walk the bike or detour around them. Segments 8, 11, 12, 13, and 14 would be candidates for that approach. Especially 14, where the only issue is Moore's Creek Battlefield, but you literally just do a lap around the place and come back to the main entrance, so you could just stash the bike and do the walk.

I'm a trail angel supporting Segment 8 and into Segment 9. I used to be down in Segments 13 and 14. I've helped a lot of hikers knock out the road segments on a bike. Get up with me if you need some shuttle help. If you don't mind detouring from the official route, there are some good mountain bike trails in the Greensboro Watershed that will get you from the A&Y Greenway to Bryan Park just the same. There's actually already a detour on that section due to a closed bridge on the greenway anyhow.

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u/Bt1975 Apr 17 '26

I'm not that advanced on the trail to answer your question but I can say that they are regularly working to aquire new public land to get the trail off of the road. They just announced today that they added more miles off road on the coastal area. I have started my hiking in the mtns and hoping the road will be very minimal once I get to those areas.

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u/jrmiller9 Apr 18 '26

You can pretty much bike all is segment 6. Heck, even segment 5, just bike the parkway from Beacon Heights to Bringer Cabin and you will actually have better views than from the trail.