Sunday on the KATY Trail

Father's Day was last Sunday, so Trailnet didn't have a Bicycle Fun Club ride last weekend.  However, Odin's Revenge is now less than two weeks away, and I still need miles.  With no organized ride to do, I threw out a last minute attempt to make one on Facebook:

I didn't really expect anyone to show up with the less than 12 hours notice I gave, and as you can see, I had no takers.  That night, the hourly forecast was showing a 30% chance of rain all day, so the forecast didn't help matters a lot.  As it turns out, the much-needed rain came overnight and knocked our power out for a few minutes while we slept, but by morning, the sky had cleared somewhat and the chance of rain was pushed back until at least 1:00.

Even though I wanted to get started around 6, I didn't actually wake up until 6:20 or 6:30, then I had to gather a few things before I headed out.  While I prepped for this ride more than I did for Cedar Cross, I didn't do as good of a job as I had for the CAC.  At any rate, I got my clothes on, grabbed my water bottles and a couple Honey Stinger Waffles, then headed out the door.

On my way to the trail, I made a quick stop at Schnucks to get a bottle of Sierra Mist, a banana, and some cash for along the trail.  Finally, about 7:30 I was at the Weldon Spring trailhead of the KATY Trail.  I spent the next half hour or so cleaning off my chain and airing up my tires (stuff I probably should've taken care of Saturday night), and just after 8:00, I headed west.  I was 2 hours later than I really wanted to be, but at least I had gotten out there.

Weldon Spring trailhead.

My original plan was to try and ride for 3 hours at something close to a 15 mph pace, or somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-45 miles, then turn around and come back.  However, with my late start, I decided to adjust that to more like 2 hours before I turned around.  I didn't really want to be gone all day, and with the chance of rain in the afternoon, I didn't want to risk getting my phone soaked.  My iPod was in a dry bag, but I only had one, so my phone was vulerable.

With the rain the previous night, the trail was damp in the early going, so I took it easy for the first few miles, hoping to avoid getting any more muck into my gears than necessary.  The rain also left it more humid than I'd been used to.  It was nothing atypical of a St. Louis summer, but it's been really dry here lately.  During the heat wave last summer, you could go outside at 2 AM and start sweating.  So far this year, even when it's been in the 90's during the day, the mornings and evenings have been tolerable.

I was not that far into the ride when I had another kamikaze squirrel try to commit suicide by running into me (read about my other incident here or here).  This time, the squirrel came at me from my left side, brushed up against my back wheel, then decided he wanted to live after all and managed to turn around and run back into the woods. 

Defiance was the first of 5 small towns I would be passing through on the trip, and it came up pretty fast.  The good thing about it is that there is a bike store in the town, so if you need something for your bike, you can stop there and pick it up.  I was running without a backup tube (I did have a patch kit though), so I was hoping to stop in and pick one up.  Riding by, however, their back doors weren't open like they are most days when I ride by, so I crossed my fingers and continued on. 

After I left Defiance, I passed the trailhead at Matson and Klondike Park before arriving in Augusta, which is home to several wineries and the Augusta Brewing Company.  If you are arriving by bike, there is a giant hill you have to climb to reach anything other than Augusta Brewing Company, so be prepared if you want to explore.  While I was starting to hope for a convenience store, I wasn't going to climb that hill to get to one, so I pressed on toward Dutzow.

Rear view of Washington Regional Airport

Heading toward Dutzow I started to get my initial dose of trail fatigue.  When I got to the point where I could see the Washington Airport, I figured I had to be getting close, but what I didn't realize until I was looking at a map just now is that here the trail is almost paralleling the runway at the airport, so there was a good mile and a half to two miles where I thought I just HAD to be closer to the town than I really was.  Finally, I arrived in the town and rode up 94 a few blocks to see if there was a convience store open.  I was hoping to get a snack and some more soda, as mine was getting warm and running low.  Not seeing one, I pressed on to Marthasville, only 3 1/2 miles further.

KT Caboose snack shop

When I arrived in Marthasville, I was initally disappointed at the lack of services along Depot St., which parallels the trail.  However, reaching the west end of the street, I saw this red caboose with some picnic tables on a deck.  Jackpot!  As I get closer, I see a sign advertising Hawaiian Ice.  Even better!  My eyes were too glazed over and my sunglasses were covered in too much sweat to really read the menu, but I saw enough to order a strawberry sno-cone and a can of Sierra Mist. 

Fuel for the trail, but hard on the stomach.

After ordering my food and taking a restroom break (nice clean restroom BTW), I took a seat at one of the tables on their deck to relax.  My order was quickly brought out to me and I began to dig in.  I also grabbed my Strawberry flavored Honey Stinger Waffle so I at least had a little bit of solid food.  After finishing my waffle and sno-cone, I poured the can of soda into my water bottle and decided a second can would be good, since the first one was only half the capacity of my bottle.  After I poured that can in, there was a couple swallows left, but after drinking that, my sugar alarm started going off.  Uh-oh.  I hoped that getting back on the bike would fix that in short order.

After a few minutes on the bike, I did feel a little better, but that was short lived as I was starting to feel more and more of a headwind, and then my stomach started to rebel against me again.  When I arrived in Treloar, I parked the bike and decided to eat my other Honey Stinger Waffle and the Clif Bar I had with me.  According to the Bike Katy Trail website, there is a restaurant/bar right off the trail called Murph's that has awesome cheeseburgers.  However, before I left, I had forgotten to check to see whether it was Treloar or Tebbets (closer to Jefferson City) that had this eatery, so I didn't go in to sample the food.  Plus, I was looking forward to steak when I got home, and I didn't want to kill my appetite.  Now that I know it's Treloar, I'll have to make another trip out there before this summer is over and sample their fare.

After resting for 10 or 15 minutes, I started to feel better, so I started the album that made Bowling for Soup as famous as they are probably going to get, A Hangover You Don't Deserve, on my iPod, then turned around and headed east.  It was now 11:00 (I just figured out that I can look at the time stamp of when a song was last played on my iTunes to verify this), so as it turns out, I did ride west for almost 3 hours, though there was probably 30-45 minutes of rest time in those 3 hours.  Once I got going, I immediately felt the effects of the tailwind and starting making really good time.  What was down to about a 12-13 mph pace as I got close to Treloar was all of a sudden a 17-20 mph pace (20 when I was really feeling like pushing it) and when that album finished up an hour later, I was already near Augusta and feeling good.

Along Augusta Bottoms Road.  The hill in the distance runs into town.

Nearing Augusta, I thought about taking the blacktop into town just to do a bit of exploring.  This would get me some hill work in, which would be beneficial for next weekend.  After thinking about it long enough to take the picture above, I decided I didn't care that much about hills and stayed on the trail.

Since the first BFS album I played worked out so well for my riding, when that one finished up, I put on the studio album they released after A Hangover You Don't Deserve, The Great Burrito Extortion Case.  After I passed through Augusta, trail used picked up considerably.  Heading west it was still early enough that I would pass someone every 5-15 minutes, but now it was around lunchtime and families were out in force for Father's Day.  East of Augusta, it almost seemed like I would pass someone or a group of someones every minute or two.  The parking lots at Augusta, Matson, and Defiance were all full heading back to Weldon Spring.

Finally, just after 1:00, I arrived back at my car.  I loaded my bike up, put a t-shirt on, and drove back home.  Mileage for the day was just under 60 miles and after that sugar from the sno-cone got out of my stomach and into my system, I felt good.  Granted, for 60 miles, this was an easy ride, but I hope this translates into Odin's Revenge being more of a mental challenge than a physical one.  Race Day will start to appear on the 10 day forecast in the morning, and I was getting hopeful earlier today when the prediction for the day before was "only" 90°, but as of just before midnight, that's been revised up to 95° with a 30% chance of rain.  We'll see what happens there, but I'm hoping for something closer to "average," which is 87°.