Bicycling Missouri's Katy Trail

In May 2008, we had the pleasure of cycling the Katy Trail in Missouri with 2 other couples. We began our travels in Clinton and headed east toward St. Charles.

Day 1 took us 65 miles along the trail to Pilot Grove. We read that Texas folks would consider this part of the trail as "hilly" whereas people in the Ozarks consider it "flat". This was definitely the hilliest part of the trail with the remainder being relatively flat. We started riding about 9:30am and about 6 miles out, it started raining. This caused parts of the trail to get soft which made it feel as if we were trying to ride through mashed potatoes at times.

Day 2 took us from Booneville to Jefferson City. This isn't the type ride you get on your bikes and see how fast you can finish but, rather, one in which we took our time to explore the trailheads, little towns and cafes, and historical sites such as Daniel Boone's gravesite and Judgement Tree. Just as we reached the Jefferson City trailhead, it started to rain again.

It continued to storm through the night but the weather had cleared before we started out on our bikes on Day 3. We woke up that morning to 45 degrees and a 30 mph north wind. The storm left downed trees across the path every few miles but we learned to maneuver over, through, and around the trees and debris on the trail. This really added to our trail experience. We rode 43 miles from Jefferson City to Hermann/McKittrick this day.

Day 4 was beautiful. The rains were gone and the further east we rode, the harder packed the trail became. We stopped at Weldon Springs so we would have time to visit with friends in the area. But we all agreed that riding to St. Charles, the end of the trail, would have been very easy that day.

In summary, we rode 204 miles in 4 days. Now that may not seem like a lot of miles to some but the fact that we were on our mountain bikes and the trail was soft made it much more difficult than had we been on pavement with our road bikes. We stayed in hotels the first and last nights and enjoyed 3 wonderful bed & breakfast inns in between. We all had a really great time.