Route to Bike from St. Louis Airport to Kansas City Airport

Hi, we we looking at flying into St. Louis and then biking from there to Kansas City (we would need to leave from the Kansas City airport. I'm having a bit of trouble confirming what happens after the Rock Island trail ends in Pleasant Hill. How would we bike from Pleasant Hill to Kansas City. I imagine we could stay in any hotel in Kansas City and then a hotel shuttle to the airport with our bike boxes. Thanks!

The Rock Island Trail extension from the Katy Trail actually ends in Pleasant Hill, then there is an 8 mile gap from Pleasant Hill to Lee's Summit (a suburb just southeast of Kansas City). You an use low traffic county roads and several bike paths to ride this gap in the trail. In Lee's Summit, the Rock Island Trail picks back up again and runs for 13 miles into Kansas City where it ends by the Chiefs/Royals stadium complex. From there, you can take a low traffic street a couple of miles and link up with the Blue River/Brush Creek trail system that takes you into the Plaza area of Kansas City. Then you can take the Gilham Road cycletrack into the heart of the city by Union Station. At this point, you have lots of options: 1) take the Grand bike lane to Downtown KC, cross the Missouri River on the Route 9 bike path, link up to Northland trail system (mainly the long Line Creek Trail) and ride your bikes all the way to the airport hotels near Tiffany Springs Parkway or 2) from Downtown KC, take the KCATA 229 bus (there are bike racks on the front bumper) to the airport area. If any of these options interest you, then let me know and I can provide more details. I will say that bike access leaving the airport in St. Louis stinks, but there are couple of route options available if you are not planning on using some kind of shuttle.

Thanks, this is super helpful. We are thinking September=. We would actually do Kansas City to St. Louis as I didn't know that was the recommended route. I was a bit surprised there wasn't more of a formal post on how to do this for those of us that are flying into Kansas City or St. Louis just to do the trip. Any additional info for St. Louis would be great! We were also thinking/hoping to hit up a Royals and then a Cards game on the trip as well if the baseball game dates aligned.

Ceric did you do this? I am toying with same plan...fly into KC with only a bike, bike the Rock Spur & Katy trail to St Louis Airport, fly out. If you did, any pointers would be great

What format did you want those directions? I use Garmin connect and I do have a Strava, but would not consider myself proficient in their use. In September I rode across the entire state starting in Westwood, Kansas making my way to the Rock Island trail (which starts at Arrowhead stadium, ends in Lees Summit, MO then starts up again at Pleasant Hill, MO where it currently ends at Windsor, MO. Then I rode the Katy to the east end and continued northeast to river ferry over to Grafton, IL before riding down to the Old Chain of Rocks bridge and to St Louis. Total miles was 394. I can help with some routes through KC and I live by the airport so am very familiar with routes, roads and trails, particularly north of the river (everything north of the Missouri River from downtown to near airport) You can search my “name” on here, I think there is a link to my ride. Also, this is a helpful website (I used it before my trip) but probably will not generate as much useful feedback as Facebook group “fans of the Katy Trail” where you can read old posts, search key words and my name, McCollom. Here is a very rough idea of getting you from KCI (MCI) to downtown and I’m going to do it by means of landmarks, trails, etc: 152 Trail ( at N Amity or N Line Creek Pkwy then take the beautiful Line Creek Trail to Argosy Casino in Riverside, MO. Cross Missouri River via US 69 highway bridge adjacent to casino, ride through very industrial Fairfax district which is in Kansas City, Kansas to Kaw Point which is a Lewis & Clark historic site. Explore the park a few minutes then go to the southwest end of the parking lot where you’ll find a pedestrian/bike bridge to 3rd street then go south on 3rd and take a left under the I-70 viaduct where the lower level of that bridge is a bike trail …this can be located using Google street view. This trail will take you into the “west bottoms” area and a few blocks later you will cross into Missouri. You’re on your own from here…if you want to see the city market/farmers market and then downtown I suggest searching for “Town of Kansas Observation Deck” City Market has plenty of walk up places to eat (LOCK YOUR BIKE….plenty of homeless people trying to survive in the city) Alternative route: from west bottom area search for Boulevard Brewing Company which can be a waypoint and/or stop to sample beer…it’s a really cool place and could also be done after city market. After these places you may want to look up your own route or waypoint the Country Club Plaza followed by Brush Creek Trail and then Arrowhead stadium where the Rock Island begins in Lot D…by the way the trail is new enough that Google maps and street view don’t show it. If you can ride through the city on a weekend it would be better traffic wise.

if you ride thru the leeds district get on raytown rd you will see the north gate[ gate 5]you see the chiefs training facility on your left go thru the gate stay to the right you can ride between the baseball and football statiums the rock island is on the south side.its acouple of miles from the north gate to the trail.

Sorry for the delay all. We are planning on doing the trip in April, so we haven't done it yet. St. Louis Cardinals are out since when we get to St. Charles, the Cards aren't in town. We are planning on going to the Royals game though April 16th. Since we will be renting e-bikes, plan is to spend the night at an airport hotel on April 15th and then take the KCATA 229 into downtown. Depending on the Royals schedule, we will either go to the afternoon game or do something in the town first. We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express south of the Royals stadium 2 miles from the Rock Island trail. I'm using the route from the ridewithgps to for the gap on the Rock Island trail, so not sure if I still need any specific directions at this point since we aren't brining our bikes to MCI.