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In front of the Paris, Texas Eiffel Tower, (from left) Landon Thornton, Rhett Reid and Eli Sellers pose on their 130-mile bike ride. Courtesy -
From left, Rhett Reid, Eli Sellers and Landon Thornton completed their 130-mile bike ride in New Boston. Courtesy
Native sons make 130-mile bike trek across Northeast Texas
Eli Sellers, Rhett Reid and Landon Thornton have been friends since sixth grade. When COVID-19 hit and they were all sent home from college, the Sulphur Springs natives weren’t ready for the adventure to end. They decided to take on the Northeast Texas Trail (NETT), 130 miles of hiking, biking and backpacking that stretches from Farmersville to New Boston.
Staying in three different towns along the way, Sellers, Reid and Thornton discovered that, in fact, the NETT isn’t fully completed.
“Sometimes we struggled a bit. Sometimes we’d have to go back out onto the highway,” Sellers said. “In some places, it’s just not maintained at all. But it was fun.”
They hit a major rain storm at the very end of the trail in New Boston but luckily were at the close of their ride, and their parents were on the way to pick them up, they said. They hit major mud, saw wild hogs and even encountered a pack of wild dogs under a bridge, Thornton said.
“It got a little hairy at times,” Thornton said. “You can definitely see how bikes are not as reliable as a car would be.”
Overall, it took the group 55 cumulative hours to complete the trail, not including the time they spent preparing, mapping or sleeping. The decision to head out on the NETT was “just something we decided to do,” Sellers said. The group normally takes a hiking or camping trip in the summer, so equipped with a spirit of adventure and their friendship, they Googled “longest bike trail in Texas” and found the NETT.
“It’s not enjoyable when you’re out there doing it, but it’s some kind of thrill when you survive,” Thornton joked. “It’s an achievement to push yourself to the limit.”
From the 1950s to the 1990s, the NETT trail area was used by the Union Pacific as well as the Chapar ral rail to run their trains. However, finding the operations unprofitable, they left the area in 1992, and the tracks were pulled up and scrapped. Sulphur Springs residents faced a similar situation in 1992: Union Pacific was leaving the area, but instead of pulling up the tracks, the Northeast Texas Rural Rail Transportation District (NETEX) and the Blacklands line were created and are still in operation today.
In 2001, the city of New Boston acquired the first rights to the now-empty NETT area, with Farmersville acquiring the other end of the trail in 2002. Between 2003 and 2009, the cities in between obtained their portion of the trail from the Surface Transportation Board, and the NETT was born. The NETT now incorporates 19 cities and seven counties in Northeast Texas. It’s the longest hike and bike trail in Texas, and the fourth longest in the U.S., according to the NETT.
Although the NETT is rich in history as a former railway, Sellers says he isn’t as much into history as his father, Sulphur Springs mayor and local historian, John Sellers.
“To me, it’s just a pretty trail,” he said. “He’s the history guy. I’m in it for the outdoors experience.”
And, according to Sellers, the NETT is for anyone to enjoy.
“I think a lot of people could do it, if they put their mind to it,” Sellers said.
But if you plan to ride the trail, “bring a lot of spare tires,” he joked. Sellers estimated the group changed out eight bike tires amongst themselves due to its unfinished nature.
“Maybe we’ll do it again next year when it’s all gravel and not so much mud,” Thornton agreed.
According to Thornton, their friendship helped push them forward to complete the trail.
“There’s a little competitiveness we have amongst each other. We try to oneup each other. …We’re always trying to push each other to our best,” he said. “Being friends, we didn’t want the other two to call each other a quitter. So you think ‘I can’t give up now. There’s no way I can call my parents to come get me.’”
Within the last miles, the boys pushed to finish the trail first.
“It was a race to the finish,” Thornton joked. “Ten miles to New Boston, we were just sprinting. No one was talking anymore, we all just wanted to get to the end.”
Ultimately, what makes the NETT unique is its Northeast Texas friendliness, Sellers said.
“A lot of the towns were excited to hear we were doing the trail,” he said. “We called ahead, and they had a campsite set up for us. We had a great time talking to them, and everyone along the way enjoyed what we were doing, us included.”