ET from Columbia on 05/13/2006 07:29 AM
Here are a couple more of my thoughts on riding with kids. First of all, mine are younger than yours, so use your judgement, but I would say 40-50 miles is doable, but ambitious. I would think 30-40 would be better, but you know your kids. Just bear in mind that you shouldn't expect the same mileage as you would on roads or paved trails. It pays to be willing to take spontaneous stops, to look at turtles, to pick mulberries, whatever. Brett Dufur publishes a nature guide to the Katy Trail which is fairly good for identifying some of the common birds, flowers, reptiles and amphibians that you are likely to see. Unfortunately, the drawings are black and white, but at least it's a single book--it gets heavy to carry several! Carry lots of snacks; I get grumpy if I'm hungry and the next food place is 10 miles away, but you can double that for the kids. Carry swimsuits--they take very little room, and several B & Bs have hot tubs, plus there is a public pool in Pilot Grove, a public swim area in Columbia just off the spur (it's about 5 miles from McBaine, so it's a significant detour unless you're going to Columbia anyway), and probably other towns, but I'm not sure where. I would not plan on Jeff City--we have done it twice--once we took a taxi across the bridge, which worked, but wasn't great. We had arranged it in advance, but their vehicle with bike racks was out of commission, so they showed up with two cabs, and we had to dismantle everything and stick it in the trunks (and pay for two cabs); the second time we pushed our bikes across the northbound bike lane. NO WAY would I allow my kids to ride that, although I would do it myself. That bridge is a lot longer than you realize when you drive across it! Even when you get across, there's a bit of riding on access roads that we weren't too keen on.