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| We rode the 2+ miles from our hotel to the start of the trail |
We couldn’t have asked for better weather for our first day. The forecast for the rest of the week looks good, but I don’t want to jinx it!
There are several ways to do cycling tours. Some go it completely alone, hauling all their gear and camping along the way. Others pay a company to handle all the gear other than what they need on the trail that day, meeting them at the end of each day. We took a middle road. We knew we didn’t want to camp, but we didn’t want to be tied to a group ride. My parents are riding along in the car, visiting the prairies, parks and other sights along the way, meeting us in the towns we’re staying in at the end of the day. Perfect!
What was really crazy today was when we got to the town where we had planned to grab some
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| Windsor – photo op courtesy of my parents showing up! |
lunch and who walks up behind us? My parents! They were on their way to a prairie to look for birds, saw a sign to the Katy Trail and on a whim, turned around and followed the road down to the trailhead we were at! They had not been able to get data on Mom’s phone, so couldn’t find us on SportsTrack or Google Locations, but they managed to find us anyway. Even better, they pulled into Sedalia as we were pulling up to the hotel we’re staying at tonight! Talk about a great SAG team 🙂
The ride was only mildly “rolling” today – dare I say it was even easy? But as much as we’ve trained, you would want the first day to seem easy. I think the true test of our preparation will be the third day. We’ve only done these distances 2 days in a row before, so getting through that day will tell me a lot. Tomorrow we ride from Sedalia to Rocheport, about 49 miles.
Here are some other photos from today. We took some video, too, but given the speed of the internet here at the hotel, I’m doubtful we’ll get that uploaded tonight.
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| Ready to hit the trail! |
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| Much of the trail today looked like this – beautiful! |
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| Just one of the many bridges. Many were built within the still-standing frame of the old rail bridge. |
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| Box turtle was right in the middle of the trail – went into hiding as we passed on either side of it. |
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| I managed to drive through a massive bug cloud right after putting on fresh sunscreen! |
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| Fun signs as we came into Sedalia – Remember S&H Greenstamps? |
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| Arrived at Sedalia depot – Did you know Scott Joplin lived here? |
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| Hotel Bothwell – beautiful downtown Sedalia |
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| Love the elevators and old post box! |
Birdlady42
Sounds like a great start – the bugs on your arm are incredible! What do you think of the trail surface and trail conditions? Are you seeing any traffic on the trail? I presume it's fairly light? And will be even lighter on Monday.
The trail surface is definitely more rolling resistance than a normal road, but it's solid. Very light traffic today. There's a group here at the hotel that is starting from Sedalia in the morning, but they aren't going as far as we are tomorrow, so I don't expect to see them very long 😉