Touring - Natchez Trace

Has anyone ridden/toured the Natchez Trace, and can you tell me about it?

The northern end around Nashville is very pretty, somewhat hilly. Pretty much flat after that, always with a rural feel. There is no shoulder and the road is fairly narrow. The speed limit for cars is 45, but.... I haven't been on it in about 7 years but at that time they chipped and sealed a long portion of the route in the TN/MS boarder area which made for a very rough ride. Not sure how they have been surfacing since then.

The worst tour I have ever been on was on the natchez trace I did the whole thing from nashville to natchez. After the first day I saw everthing there was to see, the scenery rarely changes. I could not camp in most places and if you need supplies forget about it. I would have to get off the trace to get the nearst town and that could be 20 miles away , so I would ride 40 miles just to get some food. If you want to do the trace do it for a day and you will get your fill of it. Do I dare mention the roads in MS. I like touring thru small towns and the trace if anything took me away from small towns

I once stumbled onto a website by a guy in Mississippi with touring info about the Natchez Trace. Try doing some searches. I went to dogpile.com and did a search as follows:

+"Natchez Trace" +"bicycle tour"

and came up with several references by people who have toured it. Give it a try.
Regards,
Raymond

:) Thanks for the info everyone, it doesn't sound like the Natchez Trace would be as enjoyable as some other rides, I like to stop in little towns and have meals as well as meet the local people. I may look at riding from Detroit, along the south coast of Lake Erie, toward New York State. Any suggestions of 4-6 day tours in the states?

This time of year Florida probably has the most ideal conditions.I recently did a tour to the northcentral part of the state and it was nice and am planning a 4-5 day trip down to the Keys soon as well.During the summer though I would probably suggest looking out west to the Rocky Mtn. region or the west coast .

I ride the trace all of the time. Granted, I usually ride it for a day, but I have done long distance rides on it and that was great. Very few cars. The only bad thing about it is that it is far from most towns. If you need supplies, you do have to ride for a while, until you get near Hohenwald, TN. Otherwise, I would definitely recommend it! I rode it for a full week back in September and had a blast. I went from Franklin, TN, which is very close to where it starts to 50 miles inside of Mississippi. It was a blast! At night, I would pull off on the side of the road and go camp back in the woods, where I was pretty sure no one would see me.