In Which We Love a Missouri Trail

MKT Trail near Columbia on a pretty fall evening.

Iowa bikers—if you have not tried the Katy Trail in Missouri, you should.

This fall break, my wife and I went down to central Missouri for a quick two-day visit. We brought our bicycles with us, planning some short rides along the long trail.

We stayed in Columbia, where we both went to graduate school. We arrived late in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and after checking in to our motel, we drove down by the MMU campus to catch the MKT Trail.

Bikes on Katy Trail as we rest before returning to town.

Our first trail ride in Missouri was on a pleasant fall evening, cool but not cold. The MKT moves through the city and quickly gets out into rocky, forested countryside. It was a gorgeous ride. If we had gone far enough, we would have made it to the Katy Trail, but it was getting late, light was fading, and we headed back to Columbia and Shakespeare’s Pizza for a Mizzou-style dinner.

On Wednesday, we drove over to Boonville, where we had lived for eight years in the 1980s. We parked and walked around for a while, starting at the house we had owned. Then, we unpacked our bikes and headed west and south on the Katy Trail.

An elderly man walking on the trail gave us a friendly warning that we were headed uphill, and he was right. For miles out of Boonville, the trail has a fairly steady upgrade, although it’s a rail grade, which means you can go uphill for miles but it never gets steep. Despite the climb, we were enjoying ourselves.

We crossed Interstate 70, and were starting to feel hunger pangs. After a while, we decided it was time to head back for lunch at the Palace in downtown Boonville. Along the way, we passed a yard where the resident had decorated the yard with skeletons riding bikes, and it was fun to see.

Decoration on Katy Trail.

If you ride the Katy Trail, making a lunch stop at the Palace in Boonville would be a good move. It was great. I had a french dip sandwich and Greek salad, and would like to try more food there except the sandwich and salad were so good I would also like to have them again.

In the afternoon, we were heading back to Columbia to meet my old friends and colleagues from my Missouri newspaper days. Along the way, we decided to stop in Rocheport and ride on the Katy Trail there. We only had an hour or so, so the ride was not long. But, wow. It was a fantastic ride. Trees along the Missouri River, bluffs on the other side, a tunnel through a hill—the afternoon was sunny, the weather perfect and the trail beautiful.

View of bluffs and Missouri River from Katy Trail near Rocheport, Missouri.

In all, we only rode a few miles along two stretches of the Katy Trail and the MKT Trail. I can’t vouch for it all. The trail is limestone and has some hazards—holes, branches, rock and such—along the way. You probably want a hybrid or mountain bike for this ride. But it’s a very pretty ride. I’d like to go back sometime and ride more of the Katy Trail.

And eat a good biking lunch at the Palace again, too.

My wife's shadow as we ride the Katy Trail near Boonville. Hope to cast our shadow there again before too long.