Quick links

Cyclist Palmer Bowles videoed his Katy and Rock Island Trail trip from Kansas City to St Louis.  Watch the whole trip here:

MoDOT has announced that the bike/ped path connecting the Katy Trail to Hermann, MO (the path on the Christopher S. Bond Bridge that carries Hwy 19 into Hermann) will be closed temporarily during bridge maintainance, starting as soon as April 22nd, 2024. 

The work also affects the Loutre River Bridge on Hwy 19, which is just south of the Katy Trail at McKittrick.  Katy Trail riders visiting Hermann typically ride the shoulder of Hwy 19 south of McKittrick to the Christopher Bond Bridge, then use the bike/ped path to cross the Missouri River.  So maintenance work on the Loutre River Bridge may disrupt bicycle use of the shoulder there, requiring bicyclists to ride with other traffic through the construction zone.

Closures will continue 7am-5pm Monday-Friday as long as work on the bridge continues - which could be into May or possibly even June depending on whether an other factors.  

The path will be open before 7am and after 5pm daily, as well as on weekends.  Also, starting in May work will end, and the path will be open, by noon Fridays.

A Day in the Life of a Bicycle Traveler by Bill Poindexter - from his Bikepacking School substack:

I start riding usually heading into a town if there’s a town around or I’ll stop somewhere to have breakfast number two usually a couple hours after I start riding because you always need a second breakfast as the first breakfast is just to lay a base, the second breakfast is to get you through the day. Those breakfasts are the most fun though and usually the main meal of the day especially if you’re in a town you want a lot of calories for the rest of the day. My favorite is the traditional breakfast of coffee, hash, brown potatoes, and Two or three eggs I prefer them over easy with either sausage or bacon and perhaps a side of Johnny cakes if they’re available basically cornbread type pancakes but they’re hard to fine except on the East Coast -then you have to find somebody who can really make a true johnnycake Which is basically just water cornmeal bacon fat slathered with butter and syrup, real syrup and perhaps I have a glass of milk in an orange juice or just stick to the traditional breakfast.

One of my secrets, I order extra bacon and toast and then make a bacon sandwich with strawberry jam that can always get me over the next mountain.

On October 11, 2023, the Missouri Transportation Task Force will be hosting its 2nd annual Virtual Summit.

Join national and state transportation experts to learn about best practices and frameworks to achieve accessible and affordable transportation.

Session topics include State and Federal Funding, Mobility Management, Current Transit Needs, Aging and Transportation.  

Here is a good but often overlooked resource of bicycle facility planning in Missouri, the 2012 MARC Local Bikeway Best Practices Guide (pdf):

The following guide is intended to foster multi-jurisdictional uniformity in the planning, design, and construction of bikeway facilities by establishing common definitions, design guidelines and system marking devices. . . . 

This section has been prepared based on a thorough review of current planning guidelines, and design standards for bicycle facilities. It is consistent with professional guidelines set forth by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) and the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT).

Download the Guide here:

• Local link to file
• KCAPWA archived link to file

Visit the KCAPWA web page.

File: 

2012_marc_local_bikeway_best_practices.pdf