Small adventures had always been intriguing for John and I,
nothing dangerous just bucket list challenges. I'm sure many people have
similar dreams so one of ours was to ride the Katy trail from beginning to end.
At the time the beginning was in St. Charles (Jean Baptist Point DuSable
Park) with the end being Clinton, Missouri, which was about 225 miles not
including side trips.
We rode many training rides throughout the
summer to prepare for our Fall adventure.
We knew we would be riding about 60 miles a day so we felt it was
necessary to practice riding long distances.
One of our practices rides was from St. Charles to McKittrick, a little
over 60 miles, which was a good test ride. Mimi dropped us off at he park for
our test ride but when we unloaded our bikes I discovered I forgot my helmet
(that’s an amateur move), so John and I set off on the ride and met Mimi at
Greens Bottom where I picked up my helmet.
As we pedaled away from Greens Bottom our
plan was to have lunch at a deli in Dutzow.
We made it to the deli had a great sandwich then made our way to
Marthasville then to our final destination of McKittrick. It was a long day but Mimi and Cindy met us
at the trailhead and drove us to Herman to have a nice dinner. Of course dressed on biking clothes wasn’t
acceptable attire for dinner so we went to a gas station to change. We both went into the men’s room to change
and walking out in our dinner clothes.
We got a few odd looks from strangers when we both walked out of the gas
station bathroom, Oh Well. We had a nice
dinner and confirmed our belief that we were up to the challenge.

So we left Dutzow and headed to
Marthasville about 3.5 miles down the trail.
We’ll find someplace to eat there. As we rolled in to Marthasville we
spotted a bar so we parked our bikes and went in to grab some grub. What a stroke of luck, they had a special
all-you-can-eat of some great comfort food for $5.00, sweet. This was way better than the deli. After lunch we felt refreshed and ready to
ride to the B & B. We arrived at
Meyer’s late afternoon showered before dinner. The Meyer’s were kind enough to
drive us into Herman where we had dinner while they went to church. We rested well
that night and had an excellent breakfast. This was a great choice for our
first night nice couple with a great sense of humor.
The next day we rode out of McKittrick
headed for our next B & B in Hartsburg at the Globe Hotel. We rode through
nine small towns some so small if you missed the sign you wouldn’t have noticed
the town. When we rode in to Mokane we
stopped at Mokane Bar and Grill for lunch a very bike friendly bar that had
good food. The traffic on the trail almost non-existent once we left
Marthasville but the ride was pleasant and relaxing stopping to snap a few
pictures when we saw something interesting.
We arrived at the Globe Hotel in Hartsburg after a 53-mile ride to what
I would describe as Cowboy hotel right out of an old John Wayne movie. The
place was clean but the owner had an odd some may say bizarre personality. For more info on our night at the Globe Hotel
read my post from 11/14/13 titled Katy
Trail Ride (2nd Night) Globe Cowboy Hotel and learn about the greatest
prank ever.

We left
the next morning after a nice breakfast making as much noise as possible hoping
to wake the sleeping beauties next door. Clinton Missouri was a 61-mile ride
passing through Sedalia and stopping for lunch in Green Ridge at the bar and
grill. We arrived in Clinton tired but excited
that we rode the trail and had some fun experiences meeting many friendly
people. There were some property owners
that were not supportive of the trail or cyclist with signs in their yard
claiming the Katy trail stole their land. We were cautious when we crossed dirt
roads since some yahoo punched the gas as we were crossing the road either to
scare us or hit us, we didn’t stick around to find out.

We counted over 200 people cycling along the trail and talked to many, saw lots of wild life, stay dogs and even passed a ranch with some buffalos roaming the range, Hmm! that sounds like it could be a song. All in all it was a great and memorable trip that I would recommend for anyone that doesn’t mind riding about 240-mile over 4 days.

We counted over 200 people cycling along the trail and talked to many, saw lots of wild life, stay dogs and even passed a ranch with some buffalos roaming the range, Hmm! that sounds like it could be a song. All in all it was a great and memorable trip that I would recommend for anyone that doesn’t mind riding about 240-mile over 4 days.