OVERVIEW - 2/18/24

The 2024 FOGBEE Katy Tour starts and ends in Hendersonville TN on May 20, 2024 to May 27,2024, pedaling from Kansas City KS to St. Charles MO. The RideWithGPS maps are https://katytrail24.blogspot.com/p/routes.html

The group (of EIGHT) will meet in St. Charles and transfer their bikes by U-Haul to Kansas City. The trip is Inn-to-Inn with the possibility of camping for some members. Their itinerary is https://katytrail24.blogspot.com/p/itinerary.html .

It is SAG supported with each participant taking turns to drive the vehicle for around 10 miles. 
https://katytrail24.blogspot.com/p/sag.html 

The ROUGH estimate of cost is https://katytrail24.blogspot.com/p/expense.html

Mark Greene camped Katy in 2023. His video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J19i-Pe_CgM (sorry about the video ads).

For more information about the Katy Trail check https://bikekatytrail.com/default.aspx and the Katy Trail Riders Group 

Ross Has Done Katy THREE times

I have ridden the Katy Trail 3 times over the years and yes I would ride it again. 

The first time was about 20 years ago, my sister and I rode from Clinton to St Charles the east terminus at that time was St Charles. We were self contained and camped all the way across. I pulled a BoB trailer with all my gear and my sister used panniers. 

The next time my van was the SAG wagon and we rode Machens trailhead to Clinton and camped each night in a campground. 

The last time was fall of 2016, and the present van that I have was the SAG Wagon. We rode Clinton to the Machens Trailhead and camped in campgrounds each night. 

There are B & B options all along the trail and motels in nearby towns so that option should not be a problem to work out. It will be interesting to see what your preliminary plan looks like. Each time my van was SAG we had 7 or 8 people and Bobby Jones was one of them.

Ross

Preliminary Plan

When I did the Original KATY for turtles in 2019, the Rock Island trail was under construction. It's now complete. Also, Google now has more cycling data, including nominally cycle friendly streets in KC. I've sampled some with Google Streets and have concerns about just how cycle friendly they are. (Think Dickerson Pike in Nashville, purportedly a cycle route.) I've updated the KATY RWGPS route to include Rock Island and cycle friendly roads across Kansas City into Missouri. Ross has done the KATY, I believe more than once. Perhaps he can give us better insight.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/30429655

This route was planned as a 10 day totally across Missouri 460 mile tour from Cape Girardeau to Kansas City, NE. That might be ambitious for this half decade older crew.  The route can be trimmed at both ends to make a shorter tour and on almost all rail trails.  Say from St Charles to Peasant Hill, 6 days and 225 miles, all on rail trail except any end of day connection to lodging.  And to heck with Fall 2024, I say shoot for next Spring.
Bruce

Here is the Katy Trail Riders Group