A paved rail trail runs the full length of Ozaukee County on the bed of an electric railway that closed in 1948. The Ozaukee Interurban Trail covers 30 miles from the Sheboygan county line down to Mequon, and it goes straight through the middle of Belgium, which most of the people riding it never stop to notice.
The railway it sits on opened in 1908 and ran between Milwaukee and Sheboygan until the buses and the cars killed it. The trail was finished in 2002. It is free, it is paved end to end, and it carries walkers, runners, cyclists, in-line skaters and cross-country skiers depending on the month.
Getting on the trail in Belgium
Two access points, and neither is signposted from the interstate. The first is off Main Street just east of the railroad tracks. The second is a path that runs in from behind the fire station at 195 Commerce Street.
There is a kiosk at the Main Street access on the north side, and a bike repair station at the access on the south side. That repair station is the single most useful thing on this stretch of trail and it appears on almost no map, which is a shame for anyone who snaps a chain eight miles out.
Worth knowing while you are standing there: the fire department behind you was organized in May 1907, one year before the railway opened, and it still owns the horse-drawn hand pumper it bought that year.
Parking and what is not out there
Park in the village. There is no dedicated trailhead lot at either access point, but Belgium is small enough that this does not matter. There is room for cars and semi-trucks at the park and ride on Fredonia Avenue, near the village hall.
Once you are south of the village there is nothing. No water, no toilets, no shop, for the best part of eight miles until the edge of Port Washington. It is farmland. Carry what you need, because the flatness of this section makes it easy to go further than you planned.
The railway underneath it
The Milwaukee Northern, later part of the interurban network, opened this line in 1908 and ran electric cars up the county until 1948. It was the way people in Belgium got to Milwaukee before everyone had a car, and it is the reason the village has a Main Street at all rather than a crossroads.
The trail still runs alongside working railroad tracks in places, which is why the access point is described as being east of the tracks rather than at them. Mile markers along the route sit roughly where the old stops did.
South to Port Washington
Roughly eight miles, and one of the flattest sections of the entire trail. This is the stretch to ride if you want distance without work.
It leaves the village through open farmland, which is the trail at its best and its least photographed. Mile markers run the whole way. Several sections are designated bird-watching hotspots, and in a wet spring the marshy ground either side of the path is worth slowing down for.
The trail passes under I-43 on this stretch. Further south, near Grafton, it crosses over the interstate on a bridge instead, and riders who have done both usually remember the bridge and forget the underpass. Belgium gets the underpass.
Coming into Port Washington the grades turn sharp, and the route moves onto city streets for about a mile and a half, marked with signs and painted arrows. That is the one part of the trail where people get lost.
North to the county line
North of the village the trail runs to County Road K and hands off to the Sheboygan Interurban Trail, which carries on through Cedar Grove and ends at DeMaster Road in Oostburg. Ridden end to end, the two together come to something like 40 miles.
Cedar Grove is four and a half miles north of Belgium in a straight line. If you want a short out-and-back with a definite turning point rather than a long day, north is the better direction, and it is emptier than the run south.
E-bikes
E-bikes on this trail are a live local argument rather than a settled question, and it comes up often enough that people search for it. Rules on Wisconsin trails are set by the authority that manages each segment and they are not uniform county to county.
So check the current position with the trail authority before you assume. What is safe to say is that the trail is shared, it is busy on summer weekends, and speed is the thing people actually complain about.
When to ride it
Summer weekends are the busiest the trail gets all year, and the section south of Port Washington takes the worst of it. Spring and fall are better riding and emptier. The surface is groomed for cross-country skiing in winter on some stretches.
Early morning is the answer if you want the farmland to yourself, which is also when the light on that stretch is worth carrying a camera for.
Birds on the farmland stretch
Several sections of the trail are designated bird-watching hotspots, and the ones either side of Belgium are the least visited of them. Marshy ground pulls in red-winged blackbirds and, in the right spring, sora and blue-winged teal. The woodland edges hold woodpeckers, cardinals and chickadees the whole year.
Early morning, and go north rather than south if you want to hear anything over the interstate. The underpass carries noise a long way in still air, which is the one genuine drawback of the Belgium stretch and nobody writing about this trail ever mentions it.
Racing on it
The village race weekend uses this ground. The local race series runs a flat 5k on the village roads, a 10k that cuts into the state park, and a half marathon out through the farm country the trail also crosses. If you are riding on that weekend, expect company.
What is by the trail in the village
Everything, effectively. Belgium is 2.15 square miles and the trail runs through the middle of it, so nothing in the village is more than a few blocks off the path.
Within that few blocks you have a bar and grill with indoor volleyball courts, a pub alongside the railway track that does the Friday fish fry, and the Luxembourg museum. All of the six places to eat in Belgium sit within about a mile of each other.
Buy something and take it to the plaza by the village hall, which is open from nine in the morning until ten at night and has shade.
Arriving by road rather than by bike is covered separately in the exit-107 run into the village.
And for the days you are not on two wheels, there is what else Belgium holds.
Frequently asked questions
Published June 15, 2026
