Originally Posted by
John Bailey
April 3rd riding to Clinton and then doing the entire KATY in the next 6 days.
How are you getting to Clinton? Down the Katy I suppose? Or some other way?
Originally Posted by
John Bailey
1. I've got 2 good bikes, a Trek FX 7.3 and a Bianchi Eros. I've put 700x35 nobbies on the Trek and figure that will be the best for this trip on the crushed limestone.
It depends on whether you feel comfortable on it or not. It also depends on the day in question and the weather. The weather will influence your ride much more than the bike (mud is no fun with any bike, especially weighted down with gear, but snow/frost might be a factor for the time you selected as well), though the bike with nobbies will be fine. (I've seen some with slicks on the trail when I was there on dry days.) You'll have to ask others what to think on the bikes.
Originally Posted by
John Bailey
2. I loath having to be tied down to a schedule. Do any of you have experience on the trail at that time of year and will I have problems if I don't schedule a room in advance. I'd like to be able to ride about 50 to 60 miles a day and then look for a room. (Hence, the tent just in case.)
http://www.bikekatytrail.com/ will be a great site to explore this question on. I know, though, a lot of the businesses are seasonal, so you'll have to research them before you go. There are also good resources on this site to plan your rides, any tourism you would want, and so on. The resources on that site aren't too good for terrain that you will encounter, or if you decide to hit any side trails (or roads) along the path. But you can always ask on any of that and I'm sure someone can say something about it. MO DNR holds a 5-day supported ride on the trail each year as well, so you should be able to get some ideas from how they've planned those over the years.
http://www.mostateparks.com/katytrail
Originally Posted by
John Bailey
3. Do any of you have experience riding the train from St. Louis to Sedalia? Is there any advice I need to heed?
It's the
Amtrak Missouri River Runner route. While I haven't rode on it in a very long time (I didn't think ill of it for riding it when I did), I would presume the only major question will be if/how they would accept your bike on it. But you can always ask them, or someone else that has done it. There may be some info on the other site I linked about it, too.
Originally Posted by
John Bailey
Any other advice would be appreciated. I've already got the trail book and it's been very helpful. I'd be interested in any first hand knowledge, or any stories of the KATY Trail you could pass on.
The main one I mentioned is to keep an eye on the weather and trail condition, given the time that you are thinking of. The other one is to have a plan/idea for dealing with weather (rain/storms) - both awareness and ways to deal with it - since storms/rain come along often, within hours, at that time of the year, too. Some are fine to just ride through if you have the gear, but for others you want to be able to take shelter for.