If you've ridden out of Lee Martinez Park more than a few times, you already have a turnaround spot. Maybe it's Rigden Reservoir. Maybe it's wherever the pavement used to end near CSU's Environmental Learning Center. You get there, you catch your breath, you head back the way you came, and that's the ride. It's been the ride for years.
That turnaround point isn't the end of the trail anymore. As of this summer, the pavement that starts near Lee Martinez Park keeps going, through Timnath, past Windsor, all the way into Greeley, closing a gap that construction crews had been working on since September 2025 on a trail whose very first stretch opened back in 1978.
Why the gap sat unfinished for so long
The Poudre River Trail was never built by one agency working off one map. It's five jurisdictions stitching together their own sections on their own timelines: the City of Fort Collins, Larimer County, the Town of Timnath, the Town of Windsor, and the City of Greeley, with the Colorado Department of Transportation handling the trickiest piece, a bridge and underpass where the trail has to cross I-25. That's why a Fort Collins rider could spend a decade on "the Poudre trail" without ever thinking of it as part of something 45 miles long. Your city finished its piece. Nobody else's piece was open yet.
Fort Collins closed its own final two in-city gaps at the end of 2024, linking the route continuously from Bellvue down to Timnath. The last remaining piece, a roughly one-mile stretch between south Timnath and north Windsor, needed a new bridge over the Greeley No. 2 Canal. Larimer County put that segment out to contractor Connell Resources as a $2.4 million project, funded by Great Outdoors Colorado along with grants from Colorado Parks & Wildlife, the Northern Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, and CDOT.
Here's the shape of how it actually came together, piece by piece:
| When | What closed | What it meant |
|---|---|---|
| 1978 | First trail segment opens near Lee Martinez Park | The original Fort Collins stretch, decades before anyone called it a 45-mile regional trail |
| Oct.-Nov. 2024 | Fort Collins finishes its last two city gaps, from Arapaho Bend to the new I-25 underpass and west of Arapaho Bend to CSU's Environmental Learning Center | Continuous riding from Bellvue to Timnath for the first time |
| Spring 2026 | Larimer County completes the Timnath-to-Windsor segment, including the new canal bridge | The final gap closes, connecting Bellvue all the way to Greeley |
What actually happened this summer
The construction finished quietly, but the region didn't let it pass without marking it. On June 13, Larimer County, Fort Collins, Timnath, Windsor, and Greeley held a joint celebration at Timnath Community Park. Instead of a single ribbon cutting, partner agencies connected separate ribbon pieces, one from each community, to represent the decades of separate work finally meeting in the middle. The day opened with a 9 a.m. ceremony, followed by a public celebration from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. with partner booths, food trucks, and an appearance from Wilder, GOCO's Generation Wild event character.
Zac Wiebe with Larimer County's Natural Resources department put it simply when asked what the final connection meant for the people who'd use it: it "means a lot to our community and our constituents." After five decades of piecemeal construction, that's not overstatement. It's the first summer anyone can start a ride in Fort Collins and end it in Greeley without leaving the trail.
The one stretch that still isn't finished
Before you plan that ride, know that "complete" and "finished" aren't quite the same thing everywhere on the route. The Poudre River Trail Corridor's own trail alerts page, updated as recently as April 2026, notes that the section through the Narrows may have limited access through the summer of 2026, and since we're still in the middle of that summer as of this writing, that caveat is worth checking before you go. Separately, right after the June ribbon cutting, adjacent fence work along the new Timnath-to-Windsor segment was still finishing up, but Larimer County's most recent project update, dated July 2026, now lists that fence construction as complete.
None of that erases the achievement. It just means this is a good summer to check current conditions before you commit to an end-to-end ride, rather than assuming the trail is in its final, permanent state everywhere. The Colorado Trail Explorer app, known as COTREX, is the tool both the county and regional cycling groups point people to for up-to-date closures.
Before you ride the whole 45 miles
A few practical things worth knowing if you're planning to actually go the distance this year, rather than your usual out-and-back:
- Download COTREX (trails.colorado.gov) before you leave. It's the source both Larimer County and local ride groups use for current closures, including the Narrows.
- Plan your water stops. Restrooms and drinking water are available at Lee Martinez Park, River Bluffs Open Space, and Island Grove Park in Greeley, among other points along the corridor, so you don't need to carry everything yourself for a full-length ride.
- Pick your starting trailhead based on how far you want to go. Lions Open Space and Lee Martinez Community Park are the classic Fort Collins starting points if you want the shorter, familiar stretch. CSU's Environmental Learning Center is a good launch point if you're aiming to ride deep into the newly connected territory toward Timnath and beyond.
- Parking exists at both far ends near Bellvue and near Greeley if you're coordinating a one-way ride with a shuttle back.
Make the ride into an actual outing
The trail's completion is the news, but the reason to actually go use it is what's around it. If you're starting from the Old Town side, Silver Grill Cafe at 218 Walnut Street has been serving breakfast since 1933, close enough to the Lee Martinez access point that it works as a pre-ride fuel stop or a post-ride reward, cinnamon roll included.
If you're finishing a shorter loop and want something cold, Walrus Ice Cream on Mountain Avenue has been hand-making flavors in Fort Collins since 1987 and is an easy detour if your ride ends anywhere near downtown.
For anyone actually pushing east toward the new connection, River Bluffs Open Space near Windsor makes a natural rest stop further along the corridor, with shaded parking and a water fountain if you need to refill before continuing on.
The part that's easy to miss
Every regional outlet covering this story led with the same fact: the trail is finished, 45 miles, Bellvue to Greeley. That's true, and it's worth knowing. But if you already live here and already ride this trail, the more useful fact is smaller and more personal. Your familiar loop, the one you've ridden for years with a fixed turnaround spot, is no longer a self-contained trail. It's now the middle section of something much longer, and for the first time you can actually keep going past the point where you always used to stop.
That's worth checking out this month, while the weather holds and while the Narrows caveat is still worth a quick check before you head out. Ride a little further than you normally would. See how far your own familiar stretch actually goes now.
Michael Jensen has spent three decades getting to know Fort Collins street by street, trail by trail. If you're weighing a move to a neighborhood near the river corridor, or just want a broker who actually knows which streets connect to which trailheads, reach out to Fort Collins Real Estate for a conversation grounded in the town he actually lives in.
