Katy Trail ride

With my daughter's graduation from college, friends visiting from out of state and various other things I haven't had a chance to post about our Katy trail trip.

The trip was awesome! An overused word but it fits here. :D The trail is incredible - clean, well maintained and with a good surface, even with a lot of rain. I was impressed. If you have ever thought about riding the Katy Trail in Mo. I highly recommend it.

If you're interested here's my post on my blog: http://bit.ly/dvKsfm

By the way, my Brooks worked out great! It didn't start out that way but by the last couple of days of the ride we were best buds. The only problem I had was my seat post slipped continously requiring readjusting/raising it and then retightening several times a day. I'll be contacting the shop where I bought it about that.

Susan

Loved it! Thanks for posting Susan!

I was born and raised in MO, but didn't ride when I lived there. I've always wanted to go back and do the Katy. Your pictures inspired me sooner than later, I think that'll be a good 40th trip!

Beth

I loved your blog. Recognized almost all of it. I do need to remember what a beautiful state Missouri is sometimes. Also, you are so right about how QUIET the Katy trail is. And could you believe those hills in Augusta? Did you ride up them or walk?

Glad you had such a great trip, and you didn't mention any snakes. Did you see any?

That's the Mo Research Park extension trailhead, right before the St. Charles trailhead pic--my "home" trailhead! We regularly ride the area from St. Charles to Defiance (ice cream stop!) Glad you enjoyed my home state of Missouri. We're still trying to do the west end from Jeff City. Maybe this year. I'll do it end to end at least once :-)

I always wonder how far people have ridden when we see them on our end. We passed the Bike & Build team last year. The trail is also mentioned in Kurmaskie's book, "Momentum."

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Originally Posted by uforgot

I loved your blog. Recognized almost all of it. I do need to remember what a beautiful state Missouri is sometimes. Also, you are so right about how QUIET the Katy trail is. And could you believe those hills in Augusta? Did you ride up them or walk?

Glad you had such a great trip, and you didn't mention any snakes. Did you see any?

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Those hills!!:eek:

We rode up some, stopped at Augusta winery for *refreshments* and ended up doing the full wine tasting, then rode up the rest to get to the B & B :eek:

Saw one snake. By the time I saw him I was right at him. I *eeked* which scared the snake and he made a move - I'm sure to get away - but at the time it seemed like he was lunging at my foot. I scared him, he scared me. My husband had to reassure me the snake wasn't following me! :p

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Originally Posted by TrekTheKaty

That's the Mo Research Park extension trailhead, right before the St. Charles trailhead pic--my "home" trailhead! We regularly ride the area from St. Charles to Defiance (ice cream stop!) Glad you enjoyed my home state of Missouri. We're still trying to do the west end from Jeff City. Maybe this year. I'll do it end to end at least once :-)

I always wonder how far people have ridden when we see them on our end. We passed the Bike & Build team last year. The trail is also mentioned in Kurmaskie's book, "Momentum."

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Lucky you!! We liked that leg of the trail. I need to post a picture on the blog of that huge tree nearer to St. Charles - know the one I mean?

We definitely enjoyed Missouri, it is a beautiful state. The Trail is an unbelievable resource - the longest state park I've ever seen. ;) Glad we are so close to it too.

We saw a couple of stages of the Tour of Missouri in 2008 and have wanted to bike there ever since. Glad we did, now that we know how great it is we'll be back! :)

What an awesome trip - I'm so jealous! I've been trying to convince my husband that we should ride the Katy, but he's convinced that since it's not an all blacktop trail, it wouldn't be any good. :( We rode a small stretch of the Mickelson Trail in South Dakota several years back and never got a chance to coast on the unpaved surface - and he's completely set on riding road bikes with the skinny road tires. :confused: So how was the ride? (Besides the hilly section!)

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Originally Posted by Deborajen

What an awesome trip - I'm so jealous! I've been trying to convince my husband that we should ride the Katy, but he's convinced that since it's not an all blacktop trail, it wouldn't be any good. :( We rode a small stretch of the Mickelson Trail in South Dakota several years back and never got a chance to coast on the unpaved surface - and he's completely set on riding road bikes with the skinny road tires. :confused: So how was the ride? (Besides the hilly section!)

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I've always been a skinny road tire girl myself, but got the Jamis Aurora elite so we could do these types of rides. It's different than riding on the road - no coasting as you pointed out - but no cars too. For me at this stage in my life no cars trumps about everything else. ;)

Besides, it's beautiful, quiet and relaxing. On the road you can never relax because you always have to be aware of what is going on around you but on a trail with no traffic, in the middle of nothing, yet everything, complete escape happens.

Except for Mother's Day, I bet we didn't see 30 people on the entire trail the whole time we rode. 227 miles. I love that, but then I like solitude.

The surface was in great shape. Hard packed, only a few spots that the back wheel would dig in a bit and slide but never to the point that I fell. And they have had an unusual amount of rain. A tree fell one morning and later that morning they were already clearing it.

We met a guy on the trail that has ridden quite a few of the rails to trails and he said the Katy was his favorite.

I highly recommend you give it a try, especially since you're so close to it. If you can't convince your husband to go take a friend that rides. You won't regret it! :)

Susan

What fun! Thanks for posting that. I'd love to so something like that someday. I'll have to share you blog with my DH.

Susan, if you covered this in your blog, I apologize, but how did you get back to your car at the start once you finished the ride?

Congrats on your ride!!! I loved the write-up, and now *I* want to do it!!! You can camp along the way, can't you? Or is it only B&B's? I guess I need to do my research. I'm all about getting away from cars and really enjoying the quiet of nature.

Here are the lessons I've learned from your trip:
1. ride East to West since you had a headwind most of the way (although riding the opposite way will insure there will be a headwind the other direction, too).
2. ride East to West since it felt like you rode slightly uphill the whole way (does that mean riding it the opposite way of you will feel like you have a slight downhill the whole way- or do you think part of it was the packed trail making the extra work?)
3. look forward to *lots* of solitude and peace (woo hoo!!!!!)

I'm so excited and happy for you! Thanks for sharing your adventure with us! I'll just bet someone will be inspired and try the Katy because of your blog! ;)

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Originally Posted by indysteel

Susan, if you covered this in your blog, I apologize, but how did you get back to your car at the start once you finished the ride?

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Oh, yeah, I want to know that too. Did you use one of those shuttles?

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Originally Posted by Tri Girl

Congrats on your ride!!! I loved the write-up, and now *I* want to do it!!! You can camp along the way, can't you? Or is it only B&B's? I guess I need to do my research. I'm all about getting away from cars and really enjoying the quiet of nature.


2. ride East to West since it felt like you rode slightly uphill the whole way (does that mean riding it the opposite way of you will feel like you have a slight downhill the whole way- or do you think part of it was the packed trail making the extra work?)
3. look forward to *lots* of solitude and peace (woo hoo!!!!!)

I'm so excited and happy for you! Thanks for sharing your adventure with us! I'll just bet someone will be inspired and try the Katy because of your blog! ;)

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You can go to the Katy website and you will see that it is actually slightly downhill west to east from Pilot Grove. It is deceiving, I know! I think I'm going slightly uphill no matter which way I go. Here is an elevation map.

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Originally Posted by Tri Girl

Congrats on your ride!!! I loved the write-up, and now *I* want to do it!!! You can camp along the way, can't you? Or is it only B&B's? I guess I need to do my research. I'm all about getting away from cars and really enjoying the quiet of nature.

Here are the lessons I've learned from your trip:
1. ride East to West since you had a headwind most of the way (although riding the opposite way will insure there will be a headwind the other direction, too).
2. ride East to West since it felt like you rode slightly uphill the whole way (does that mean riding it the opposite way of you will feel like you have a slight downhill the whole way- or do you think part of it was the packed trail making the extra work?)
3. look forward to *lots* of solitude and peace (woo hoo!!!!!)

I'm so excited and happy for you! Thanks for sharing your adventure with us! I'll just bet someone will be inspired and try the Katy because of your blog! ;)

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Thanks Tri Girl! Yes you can definitely camp. The guy we met going cross country camped, by no means do you have to do b & b's.

I think we will still probably ride west to east because an east headwind is rare. Surely it wouldn't do it again, especially in the fall... milder winds in fall, right?! :cool: Plus we would park our car in Sedalia, ride east and take either Amtrak back to Sedalia or a shuttle.

We saw the elevation map on the KT website but we're going to check our elevation on one of the websites where we can upload our Garmin data and see for ourselves the elevation changes. Goofy I guess but it isn't so much that it felt uphill it looked uphill. :confused: :rolleyes:

However, the trail definitely didn't have significant uphill or downhill and you're right that riding on a packed trail requires more pedaling effort than the road so it is more work. More fun too though! :D

3. Lots of that! :)

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Originally Posted by uforgot

Oh, yeah, I want to know that too. Did you use one of those shuttles?

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We used Katy Bike Rentals to get back from St. Charles to Clinton. There are quite a few places that provide shuttle service. Here's the website for shuttle info:

http://www.bikekatytrail.com/planari...?chkShuttle=on

:)

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Originally Posted by indysteel

Susan, if you covered this in your blog, I apologize, but how did you get back to your car at the start once you finished the ride?

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We used a shuttle service but you can also use Amtrak. They don't go to Clinton where our car was, we used Katy Bike rentals to get us back to Clinton.

http://www.bikekatytrail.com/planari...?chkShuttle=on

:)

I so want to do this ride thanks to your blog. Even must husband seemed enthused, and he's not all that into multi-day rides. Our biggest issue would be the bikes themselves. I only have road bikes. I do have a Trek FX, but I don't think I'd want to ride it. I'm partial to drop bars.

Check out the katy forum mentioned above. We ride our road bikes on the Katy all the time. DH used to have a second wheel set with heavier tires but he decided he didn't need them. There are very, occasional sections with loose gravel and as SLash showed, you may have to lift your bike over the occasional tree.

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Originally Posted by indysteel

I so want to do this ride thanks to your blog. Even must husband seemed enthused, and he's not all that into multi-day rides. Our biggest issue would be the bikes themselves. I only have road bikes. I do have a Trek FX, but I don't think I'd want to ride it. I'm partial to drop bars.

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That's great you want to do the ride, road bikes should work fine you would just need to change out the tires I would think, but even that may not be necessary based on TrektheKaty's experience.

Hope you do it. :)

Thanks for the info. Beyond the shuttle service, were you totally self supported? Did you have any trouble riding a loaded bike? My husband's bike is rack friendly; mine is not. Perhaps this is a good excuse for me to buy a touring bike, however!

We just got back from our honeymoon, so we wouldn't do this anytime soon, but I can't get your blog out of my head. I've been on weeklong tours, and I just love doing them.

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Originally Posted by indysteel

Thanks for the info. Beyond the shuttle service, were you totally self supported? Did you have any trouble riding a loaded bike? My husband's bike is rack friendly; mine is not. Perhaps this is a good excuse for me to buy a touring bike, however!

We just got back from our honeymoon, so we wouldn't do this anytime soon, but I can't get your blog out of my head. I've been on weeklong tours, and I just love doing them.

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No, we were punks. We used a group that hauled our stuff from each b & b/inn. We did carry stuff in our panniers but didn't have to other than necessities we needed while out riding. :o

Neither of us had done any touring before (this is the rationalization section of my post.. ;)) so we decided to pay the extra $$ to use this company: http://www.independenttourist.com/index.html

We will carry our own stuff when we go back this fall. We'll use the same shuttle (was included in the price of the independent tourist package) service or use Amtrak.

We're really sort of embarrassed by it because the main thing they did was carry our stuff, so the moral of the story for us is Pack Light! :p

Looking back and actually by day 2 we were convinced, we could have easily used a lot less *stuff* (too many clothes) and done fine carrying all our stuff on our own.

With that in mind and to kind of test myself, I packed my panniers full the last couple of days and there was no issue with riding/controlling the bike. I was surprised but I didn't really notice it except for the weight.

:)

P.S. Regarding your need for a touring bike ;), I can only say good things about my Jamis Aurora Elite. I finally got to see the merits of the disc brakes too.

What a great trip! Thanks for the post.

I have been wanting to ride some of the long trails since I discovered they existed. I have been waiting for my son to get old enough. He would never last longer than 2 hrs in the trailer (unless he fell asleep!). Fine for a half day on the VA Creeper but not suitable for anything longer. But now he's riding on his own (barely) and we could rent a trailer-bike or tandem for a long day or multi-day trip. Throw in camping and lots of treats and I think he'd be on board.

I think bike touring could make a great family trip but I'm too nervous to ride with my son on the road. These long trails are such a great option.

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Originally Posted by nc tam

What a great trip! Thanks for the post.

I have been wanting to ride some of the long trails since I discovered they existed. I have been waiting for my son to get old enough. He would never last longer than 2 hrs in the trailer (unless he fell asleep!). Fine for a half day on the VA Creeper but not suitable for anything longer. But now he's riding on his own (barely) and we could rent a trailer-bike or tandem for a long day or multi-day trip. Throw in camping and lots of treats and I think he'd be on board.

I think bike touring could make a great family trip but I'm too nervous to ride with my son on the road. These long trails are such a great option.

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Yes they are, we would like to take our grandchildren for a shorter ride on the trail. Ethan is almost 10 and would be all for it, Isabel is 6 and couldn't do it yet. Maybe in a couple of years - before they are too old and don't want to with us. ;)

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Originally Posted by SLash

No, we were punks. We used a group that hauled our stuff from each b & b/inn. We did carry stuff in our panniers but didn't have to other than necessities we needed while out riding. :o

Neither of us had done any touring before (this is the rationalization section of my post.. ;)) so we decided to pay the extra $$ to use this company: http://www.independenttourist.com/index.html

We will carry our own stuff when we go back this fall. We'll use the same shuttle (was included in the price of the independent tourist package) service or use Amtrak.

We're really sort of embarrassed by it because the main thing they did was carry our stuff, so the moral of the story for us is Pack Light! :p

Looking back and actually by day 2 we were convinced, we could have easily used a lot less *stuff* (too many clothes) and done fine carrying all our stuff on our own.

With that in mind and to kind of test myself, I packed my panniers full the last couple of days and there was no issue with riding/controlling the bike. I was surprised but I didn't really notice it except for the weight.

:)

P.S. Regarding your need for a touring bike ;), I can only say good things about my Jamis Aurora Elite. I finally got to see the merits of the disc brakes too.

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Thanks for the additional input. I, frankly, have NO problem with the idea of using a company like that as I've always done supported tours. I saw their website before asking if you did the ride without support and wondered if you had used them. That said, I haven't necessarily ruled out the idea of doing the ride without support. Obviously, it would be cheaper to do it that way.

Did you like their B & B choices and were you otherwise happy with the services they provided?

The Katy can be done on your own with the use of the website and the guidebook. (Turn by directions--uh, it's hard to get lost on the Katy.) And the bridge in Jeff City is the easiest one.

However, the cost of the shuttle and guaranteed (?) hotels would be nice (during peak season, it can sometimes be difficult to coordinate all the B&B's). Also, the peace of mind of emergency assistance would be worth it. You can be FAR from the nearest town (and town can be literally one farm with a gravel road--if you're lucky, a post office and gas station) and there aren't very many bike shops anymore.

Luggage transfer: We've only done single, overnight trips. The first time we had 2 racks with 2 bike bags. We've learned we can get by with less than that. Remember after a full day of biking, you just want to eat, shower and take a nap. Nothing to dress up for in these small towns. For one night, we packed:

sandals
t-shirt
shorts
clean underwear
toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant (I didn't even style my hair--why?)
sunblock, chamois butter in the handlebar bag
(change of cycling clothes)

However, we learned on the first trip that we didn't want to put our dirty cycling clothes back in our bag (even if you put them in a plastic bag, they will be "baked" before you get home). So we rinsed them out in the tub--DUH, they dried by the next morning. Plus, many of the B&B's cater to cyclists and have facilities to do laundry (one night we washed them in the jacuzzi tub :) )

Now the two of us can overnight with one rack and rack bag with fold down panniers--and there is still room for me to pack some emergency food!

But if I was on the 5 day ride, I would take advantage of the luggage transfer for my laptop, a cooler (I'm celiac so sometimes snacks/food is difficult) your souvenirs you buy along the way, and my pillow.

Thanks for the info. I imagine it would be doable as a self-supported ride. The issue for us--at least for the near term--is that we both don't have bikes that could be set up for panniers, and we don't plan to get touring bikes for some time, if ever. So, the fact that there is at least one company out there that would carry our luggage makes the Katy doable. We're pretty sure my road bike will accomodate up to 700 x 30 cc tires.

In any event, I think I have my DH talked into it, so it's just a question of when. I think we already took this year's big trip, so maybe next year. Any thoughts on which month? I'd like some warm and dry weather (don't we all?), so maybe mid to late September. The tours I've done thus far in Tennessee have been in that time frame, and the weather has been ideal.

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Originally Posted by indysteel

Thanks for the info. I imagine it would be doable as a self-supported ride. The issue for us--at least for the near term--is that we both don't have bikes that could be set up for panniers, and we don't plan to get touring bikes for some time, if ever. So, the fact that there is at least one company out there that would carry our luggage makes the Katy doable. We're pretty sure my road bike will accomodate up to 700 x 30 cc tires.

In any event, I think I have my DH talked into it, so it's just a question of when. I think we already took this year's big trip, so maybe next year. Any thoughts on which month? I'd like some warm and dry weather (don't we all?), so maybe mid to late September. The tours I've done thus far in Tennessee have been in that time frame, and the weather has been ideal.

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If you decide you to do a self supported ride there are still businesses that you can use for an emergency pick up for that additional peace of mind. I believe there is info about them on the Bike Katy Trail website. A couple of people mentioned this, but I'm not familiar with the name of them.

Katy Bike Rentals rents trailers you can pull behind the bike.

Regarding when, May is apparently the rainiest month. During our week rain was predicted nearly every day but it actually only rained the one day. The summer is very busy from what we were told so that nixed it for us. October is supposed to be a great time because of fall colors, I can tell you early May is beautiful because of all the flowers, another plus being the very light traffic on the trail.

:)

I picker up my Jamis Aurora yesterday. DH is waiting for the 2011s to come out so. I really like how the bike rides, although I only went for a short test ride. We're planning on signing up for the end to end Katy Trail trip sometime in September. I generally find it to be a pretty dry but comfortable month. Yay!

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Originally Posted by TrekTheKaty

That's the Mo Research Park extension trailhead, right before the St. Charles trailhead pic--my "home" trailhead! We regularly ride the area from St. Charles to Defiance (ice cream stop!) Glad you enjoyed my home state of Missouri. We're still trying to do the west end from Jeff City. Maybe this year. I'll do it end to end at least once :-)

I always wonder how far people have ridden when we see them on our end. We passed the Bike & Build team last year. The trail is also mentioned in Kurmaskie's book, "Momentum."

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Hey I ride there too!

I usually start at Greensbottom and ride to Weldon Spring or Defiance. Sometimes I start in St. Charles but I usually stop when I hit Jungerman since the treatment plant down there stinks too bad to ride past and I prefer riding under some tree cover.