Since May 1, the single-track loop mountain bikers have used for decades at Maybury State Park has been closed for renovation, and if you've walked or ridden past the Beck Road entrance any weekend this summer, you've already worked out a way around it. For Woods of Edenderry residents who treat the park as a backyard extension, the closure landed as a minor annoyance months ago. Reroute the dog walk. Skip the bike ride. Wait it out.
That's the surface story. The one underneath it is more interesting: this closure is happening at the exact moment Northville Township is finishing a piece of infrastructure that will, for the first time, connect Maybury to the other major green space on the opposite side of town. Understand both projects together and you get a clearer picture of what trail access from Six Mile Road is actually going to look like by the time the snow flies.
What's Actually Closed, and Since When
Maybury's mountain bike trail, roughly 7 miles of single-track winding through the old sanatorium grounds, has been closed since May 1 for a major renovation. The work is being funded by about $965,000 in federal relief money through Governor Whitmer's Building Michigan Together Plan, and the Michigan DNR's park page puts the timeline plainly: work continues through fall, with reopening expected before winter sets in. No firm date beyond that. If you've been checking a trail app hoping for a specific reopening weekend, you're going to be checking for a while longer.
What's not closed is everything else. The park's paved multi-use loop, the one shared by walkers, joggers, and cyclists, is still fully open and still the busier of the two systems on any given Saturday. And the Friends of Maybury point out something that gets lost in the closure headlines: a brand-new nonmotorized pathway along Seven Mile Road, running between Honey Tree Lane and Grande Vista Drive, just opened as another way into the park's trail network. That's a second front door that didn't exist a year ago.
The Loop Most Edenderry Residents Are Already On
If you're a Woods of Edenderry resident who walks or bikes for exercise rather than technical single-track thrills, the closure probably hasn't touched your routine at all. The paved loop connects directly to The Link, the marked regional trail that runs from the park's northeastern corner along Eight Mile Road, Randolph, Wing, Main, Cady, Beal, and River Streets straight into downtown Northville, then continues on to the ITC trail and Hines Drive. That's the corridor most Edenderry walkers are already using without thinking of it as "the trail system," because it doubles as the route to the Farmers Market and back.
The mountain bike closure only bites for one specific group: people who ride single-track for the technical terrain, not just the mileage. And for that group, the honest answer right now is that there's exactly one other option in the township worth knowing about, and most residents have never set foot on it.
The Trail Everyone Assumes Isn't Open Yet
Legacy Park, the 332-acre green space planned for the site of the former Northville Psychiatric Hospital south of Seven Mile Road, still carries "Coming Soon" signage along its Seven Mile frontage. That signage is technically accurate for the park as a whole. It's misleading about what's already ridable.
The Bell Branch Loop, a beginner-friendly mountain bike trail built and maintained by the Motor City Mountain Bike Association, is open now and accessed off Wayne Avenue near Haggerty Road. It's a 2-mile loop, smooth and largely free of rocks and roots, paired with the 1-mile Chinkapin Hiking Trail that leads to a large chinkapin oak, plus additional nature trails through Ward Woods that connect directly to the same trailhead.
Here's how the two systems compare while Maybury's loop is down:
| Maybury Mountain Bike Trail | Legacy Park's Bell Branch Loop | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Closed since May 1, reopening expected before winter | Open now |
| Distance | About 7 miles of single-track | About 2 miles |
| Difficulty | Intermediate, technical features | Beginner-friendly |
| Access from Six Mile corridor | A few minutes north on Beck Road | Across town, off Wayne Avenue near Haggerty Road |
| Maintained by | Michigan DNR | Motor City Mountain Bike Association |
The distance trade-off is real. Legacy Park sits on the eastern edge of the township, closer to Haggerty Road than to Sheldon or Beck, so it's a longer drive from Woods of Edenderry than Maybury ever was. But for riders who've been waiting out the closure without a plan B, it's the only maintained single-track loop currently open in Northville Township, and it's been quietly ridden by locals for a while now despite the unfinished branding on the park as a whole.
The closure didn't create a gap in local riding options. It exposed one that was already there, and pointed straight at the one park most people had written off as not ready yet.
The Pathway Finishing This November
The reason this matters beyond one riding season is a second project that's been moving on its own timeline. Northville Township's Seven Mile pathway project is being built in two phases. Phase 1, running from the new fire station west to the intersection of Seven Mile and Northville Road, was targeted to wrap by the end of August. Phase 2 is the one still ahead of us: it extends from that intersection north to Seven Mile and South Main Street, then west to tie into the existing pathway leading into Hines Park, with completion expected by the end of November.
What the finished pathway actually does is more significant than the construction itself. It's a 10-foot-wide regional route that links Legacy Park to the Farmers Market, downtown Northville's existing pathways, and Hines Park. Combine that with The Link, which already ties Maybury to downtown and Hines Drive, and by the end of November the two biggest natural areas in the township will be connected by a continuous paved route for the first time. A rider willing to cover the distance could, in theory, start at Maybury, follow The Link through downtown, and finish at Legacy Park's trailhead without touching a car for most of the trip.
That's the part of this story that outlasts the mountain bike closure. The single-track will reopen eventually and the news cycle around it will fade. The pathway connection won't. It changes what "close to the trails" means for anyone living along the Six Mile corridor, because it turns two separate, disconnected green spaces into one linked system.
What This Means If You're Already Out There Most Weekends
If your weekend routine already runs through Maybury's paved loop, nothing changes for you beyond the mountain bike detour signs. If you're the rider who's been sitting out the season waiting for the single-track to reopen, Legacy Park's Bell Branch Loop is a real, ridable option today, not a someday plan.
Fall also brings the seasonal draws that make the wait easier either way. Maybury Farm, run by the Northville Community Foundation on an 80-acre working farm just west of the park's main entrance off Eight Mile Road, runs its corn maze through the season, and the Friends of Maybury group keeps nature programming going year-round for anyone who wants a reason to be out there beyond the mileage.
None of this requires a special trip. It requires knowing which gate is open, which loop is still under construction, and which pathway is about to make the whole system connect. That's the kind of detail that only shows up if you're paying attention to what's actually happening on the ground, not just what the signage says.
Gardner & Gesch keeps a close eye on Northville because the small changes, a new pathway segment, a construction timeline, a trail that's quietly open before the signage catches up, tend to say more about a neighborhood than the listings ever do. If you're thinking about what's next for your home in Woods of Edenderry or anywhere else in Northville, Sell with Us.
