Reply to distance

My husband and I are going to bike the trail fall of 2013. We want to bike the entire trail and wanted to know the average distance covered in a day. We will be carrying our own gear and staying in B&B's along the way.

Hard to put a number on it. There are so many different fitness levels and interest levels. There are a few that can do the whole trail in one day, but I think most take about 5 days. When I ride alone I average about 55 miles per day. When my wife comes along we average about 35-40 miles per day. The trail is flat like much of SC, so load up your bikes with similar weight in gear and ride some of the trails in the south this fall to see what is comfortable for you.

Thanks. Our fitness level is very good and we ride regularly. I figure we will want to stop some along the way and not just ride for exercise so I wanted an idea so I can plan our overnight stops. Your feedback really helps.

I would say 50 to 60 is a good number. The wife and I are pretty fit and we bit off 78 miles in one day this spring. The next two days we were hurting a bit over 40 to 45 miles. To do it over again I might break that 160 into three 50+ days. A little more leisurely.

It kind of depends what you're into. If you want to cover distance you can do it. If you want to lollygag but still make time you can do that too. I would not recommend going too fast. Break the day up into a couple long stretches and don't pass up the sights when you see 'em. Enjoy!

I concur with the other comments here.

A buddy and I did the trail earlier this month, Clinton to Machens. We covered it in 4 days, and our itinerary was basically (rounded-off) 70 miles, then 50, then 70, then 50.

As mentioned, the 50 mile days definitely gave you time to relax a little bit, see some stuff, maybe start out a little later in the morning and/or get there a bit earlier in the evening. The 70 mile days we certainly did stop and get off the bike to look around, and had lunch of course, but covering the distance was a priority.

We met and spoke with several riders on the trail, a number of whom were also doing the full trail, and consistent with comments here, most of them seemed to be doing it in about 5 days. Some 6 days.

My best recommendation - if you want to take a little time and see all the stuff (which I highly recommend) plan to do it in about 5 days. Nail down your exact dates as early as you can and work to reserve the B&B's for those dates - they fill up well in advance in many cases. And you mention Fall 2013...if I can suggest the 2nd/3rd week in October, the foliage is incredible. It was very pretty when we went; we got the sense that if we'd gone a week or two later it would have been even more vivid.

Good luck and above all, have fun!

I agree as well. 5 days was perfect. We just rode the whole thing. I put our experiences and recommendations on a web page if you'd like to look. dconn143.wix.com/the-wallace-ride. The link to show where we are is no longer valid though.

I rode the trail Clinton-Machens-Clinton just this last September, on a fully loaded camping/touring bike, doing half B&B and half camping. I did the entire trip in 11 days (with one rest day in St. Charles) logging about 500 miles total, or an average of 50 miles per day, but my day's mileage varied from 40 to 70. I am 65 years old. Lodging I can recommend: Hotel Bothwell; Georgetown Estate View B&B, both at Sedalia; Rendlemann Home at Bluffton; Meyer's Hilltop Farm B&B at McKittrick; Lococo house in St. Charles.

Go West to East. We just did the trail from St. Charles to Sedalia staying at 3 places along the trail. It took us 4 days. We stayed at: Lococo (best breakfast) in St. Charles, Joey's Bird House B&B in McKittrick, Hartsburg Inn in Hartsburg, Hotel Frederick in Boonville. The following day we traveled to Sedalia and took the train back to Kirkwood. The Lococo picked us up and we stayed there a 2nd night. They were really accommodating. IF you go East to west like we did you will pedal against the wind and it's more on an incline than the other direction.

As noted earlier...GO WEST TO EAST!

I say go EAST to WEST! Seriously, as someone posted a couple of weeks ago, there is no way to plan a 5-day trip considering the wind. The "prevailing Westerlies" do not prevail in MO because of the Gulf currents. Yesterday the wind was coming very strongly out of the North, which made it tough to ride from Clinton to Sedalia. The bluffs around here twist and turn the wind in every direction. I have ridden both ways several times and I would opt for convenience of transportation over wind and slope any day.

I too have made multiple trips across the KATY. While I have battled headwind while heading east on more than one occasion, I would have to respectfully disagree with the post immediately above and say that - more often than not - WEST TO EAST is a more pleasant trip.

It OBVIOUSLY can be ridden either direction with great joy.

Just my 2 cents.

To me the biggest advantage of West to East is you are doing the few long inclines that the Katy has at the beginning of the trip instead of at the end.

East to West *is* uphill, as you're basically going upstream. As any sewer engineer knows, 1% slope is downhill. Or uphill, as the case may be.

I agree with others that wind can buffet you in any direction, but the prevailing still comes from the west, so more than likely you'll get more of it if going west.

Finally the rhythm of the trail when going west to east just *feels* better to me. This is no doubt subjective but west to east feels as if you're going *to* something whereas east to west feels as if you're going *away.* Those on the western side of the state of course may experience that differently.