Katy Trail Ride- The official report

It’s been 2 months to the day since I started my bike trip across Missouri with my boy scouts. I have no excuse for waiting this long, except to say that I’ve been trying to catch up at work ever since I went on that trip. Anyway, it’s high time I recap.
This trip was in the works since late last year. Having responsibility for a group of Varsity Boy Scouts, I was expected to take them on a “high adventure” trip. After reflecting back on my days as a boy scout and remembering my favorite things, I recalled riding on this trail with my best friend and his dad. As a boy, I had only seen a small portion of the trail, so I found this as the perfect opportunity to see the whole thing.
We planned our trip to last over 4 days, and I think that was ideal. We rode 60 miles a day the first 3 days, and 40 on the last. It was just enough that we could accomplish, and definitely enough to wear out teenage boys so that they were ready to sleep every night.
We drove to Clinton on Monday afternoon July 10th, with 9 boys and 3 adult leaders who would be biking, 2 who would be driving support vehicles, and 1 who would just be dropping us off. We camped behind the activity center in Clinton in the fairgrounds area. All of the boys were excited. Even if they weren’t avid riders, they were still excited. They were riding around the campground anticipating the next morning.
We were at the trailhead right around 7am, just a city block away. After gathering for a few pictures, the boys were heading down the trail before I could shout any more instructions to them.
The trail is pretty flat, with a max 4% grade, and going from West to East was a great way to go. Going in July is probably one of the worst months in terms of temps, but there was plenty of shade in most areas, so that, and the breeze that you get while in motion helped to keep us cool. The first day was the hottest, and were were pretty wiped out by the time we stopped in Sedalia for lunch. We had 2 scouts that decided to take the afternoon off at that point and just ride in the support vehicles. The rest of us pushed on after a rejuvenating lunch. Everyone that rode that afternoon made it all the way to our camping spot in Pilot Grove. We stopped there because they had a pool, and we camped in the park by the pool.
Day 2 got us to the Missouri River in Boonville before lunch. It was a little uphill to get there, and after we crossed the river, it was flat and boring through the river bottom fields. This is where the longest straightest sections of the trail were, and very little shade. If I could leave a part of the trail out, this would be it. We did have a detour towards the end of this section. There was some flooding do to the heavy snow upriver, so we had to get on pavement for a few miles to get to Rocheport. We at lunch there, and then headed down to Jefferson City, where we camped for the night. We had planned to camp 10 miles earlier, but found that we were better off going on to Jeff City.
Day 3- The goal was to get to Marthasville for camping that evening. This would mean 60 miles, and we weren’t sure the scouts had it in them. By 3 in the afternoon, we had only gone about half of the distance that we needed to. Amazingly, every one of the boys pressed on and made it to Marthasville by that evening.
Saw some great scenery on day 4. The trail in eastern Missouri was beautiful, and we finished those last 40 miles by the middle of the afternoon. We had a great time, and I am amazed that these young men finished what they started