The Pedalshift Project 117: Final preparations for riding the Katy Trail across Missouri

It’s the final tune-up before my big tour riding the Katy Trail across Missouri! On this episode, we cover some of the last minute alterations, plans for handling quirks of the ride, mileage, and how the train fits into the whole adventure. Plus, mid-tour meetup details!

preparations for riding the Katy Trail across Missouri

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The Journal: riding the Katy Trail across Missouri

  • New route alteration: adding the Rock Island Trail
  •  Mileage – is 60 miles too much on the Katy? How does it compare to the C&O? We’ll see!
  •  Road routes between Amtrak and the trails… found a few options and did a little Google Maps roadview. I have them in RidewithGPS now. About a B-/C+ in parts, but the country roads look nice. No shoulders on those, so hopefully they’re as low traffic as reported.
  •  BIG thanks to Kathy in Kirkwood for her far better route suggestion. That part of St. Louis County is tricky from a bike infrastructure perspective. Clearly tons of people bike the area, but the best routes aren’t the ones Google gives you for sure!
  • Watching flooding: https://www.weather.gov/mbrfc/
  • Weather looking good though!
  • My route on RidewithGPS

Plans for the show 

  • I’ll be recording audio journal segments for Tour Journals Vol 10. Not sure if the format will be “end of the day” ones or short ones during the ride. A lot depends on what’s happening/weather/etc.
  • I’m hoping to do some more video for this ride. If all works out, I’ll document the trip episodic vlog-style if things work out in a fully awesome way. If not, I’m hoping to at least have some video
  • Socials should have a few hits per day with images and/or video. Probably no live video for this one (I experimented with it a bit in Oregon last year).
  • Meetup… I’ve had a few people interested in possible meet up opportunities. Because the nature of the ride is a bit fluid, I’m thinking about a casual meet up in Jefferson City at Prison Brews on Friday, May 18th. Unfortunately KC and STL are on weekdays or otherwise have tight layovers that aren’t very good for one. If you’re interested in the meet up, shoot a quick email to pedalshift@pedalshift.net so I can know if anyone is interested. I’m probably going to do a DC meet up sometime this summer, so more on that later!
Reminder next week is a best of, and the week after that will be all about the ride!

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