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How exploring unique country borders revealed some of the best road cycling routes I've seen: A case for adopting abandoned railways into bike paths.

Railways revolutionized ground transportation in the 19th century, and while they still serve a vital role in developed society, there are now other ways to get people and goods around. Together with industry shifts, many once-busy lines are no longer in use. Yet, the effort and resources that went into laying the tracks don't have to be lost. Like a former factory can be converted into a desirable property with new life, former tracks can serve new users.

The biggest ground-based competitors to trains are cars and trucks; however, high-throughput roads for those are generally much wider than the train lines. Bikes, on the other hand, have much smaller footprints, so even a former narrow gauge can fit many. Bikes are also light and don't cause the vibration associated with fast-moving vehicles, so fixing a century-old bridge for safe bike use is a cheaper affair than it would be making it for cars. Changing the abandoned railways for bikes maximizes the number of people benefitting from such an investment, and since train lines often pass through some beautiful landscapes and never feature crazy inclines or sharp turns, adapting rail lines to a bike path can sound like a no-brainer.

Still, my first encounters with these conversions did not do great advertising to the cause. My earliest recollection of seeing one was in Kansas, between Wichita's Eisenhower National Airport and the busy Hwy 54. I didn't see anyone cycling there, and considering the surroundings of bare warehouses and hangars, I also did not feel any urge to try it myself. The first time I biked on former train lines was in Scotland, but while they were interesting to visit, they weren't quite practical: they went either from nowhere to nowhere (Balmossie Viaduct), had so many interruptions that it was faster to cycle on parallel roads (Wormit-Tayport), or was in a pretty grim condition (Dundee-Newtyle). Unsurprisingly, they weren't used by many folks either. When such projects aren't used by many, it can be tricky to justify the expenses. However, it turned out that these conversions are the same as building a cycling path from scratch: when it is designed well, people will come. Such was the case I saw in Helsinki, where the former railway Baana (the image atop this article) sees over a million cyclists annually [1]. Still, it felt like a singular case of a relatively short track.

The discovery of something more significant started after I cycled to the rather complex national borders between the Netherlands and Belgium on another neat conversion, the former Tilburg-Turnhout train line. Around the town of Baarle-Nassau are multiple conclaves, and a short walk can take you from one country to another multiple times. Some houses are even split in the middle, half being in a different country.

If you like maps, chances are that you will find Baarle-Nassau intriguing. I certainly did, so I scanned it to look at the other parts of Belgian borders to see if other oddities exist. Indeed, they do and are best seen from a former railway between Aachen in Germany and Troisvierges in Luxemburg: Vennbahn. Right on, that's to be cycled!

Besides another fascinating section of the Belgian border, Vennbahn also introduced me to RAVeL in Wallonia. Finally, that is the real success story here.

RAVeL stands for "Autonomous Network of Slow Lanes" in English and has over 1,500 km of paths that used to be old railway lines or towpaths [2]. Someone could argue that such an extent is not too impressive compared with other regions. The US' Rails to Trails amounts to over 40,200 km of paths [3], ~27 times more than Wallonia has. But considering Wallonia is roughly 582 times smaller than the US, there is no contest. Rather than individual examples, RAVeL is a network where one can smoothly go from one to another across the entire region, which makes the experience so much better. It is like with driving; the best is to have fun roads between nice destinations – from where one can freely pick more fun roads to continue. There is no gap in the experience.

Here are a few things that captured my attention on RAVeLs that I happily cycled on:

RAVeLs made for some of the best stretches of cycling I did on asphalt. (Being off the pavement is a different story...) Dreams, either way.

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Thanks for reading! If you have liked this article, you might also enjoy stories from Brittany (where I cycled on a former rail line between Douarnenez and Quimper), or something else from the Blog Archives.

Sources for numbers:

1. Welling, Roosa/HS.fi, 2020: Helsingin Baanan mittariin kilahti joulupäivänä ennätyksellinen vuoden miljoonas pyörämatka.
2. Le site officiel du RAVeL et des Véloroutes en Wallonie, 2025: RAVeL.
3. Rails to Trails Conservancy, 2025: About RTC.
4. in case you want to read more: Achim Bartoschek, Bahntrassenradeln, 2025: Germany has over 5,500 km of rail trails, Greenways and paths on old railway tracks in France - Wikipedia, 2025.