Originally Posted by
mstateglfr
RAGBRAI, of course, though not exactly a tour in the traditional sense.
I plan to do a 3 or 4 day ride with one of my kids. It could stay local and utilize the trail network in central IA along with rural roads, or maybe one way on the KATY and use the train to come back. Long shot due to travel time is out to the Black Hills for the Mickelson.
I started the Katy at Kirkwood, rode the train west to Sedalia and we rode our bikes back to Kirkwood. Advantage of riding the train first is that you do not have to be obsessive about getting to the train station on time. That was over a decade ago, at that time the Kirkwood station had free parking. No, the train in the photo is not the train we rode, our train came minutes later. Kirkwood is not on the Katy Trail, we had to take city streets to get back to Kirkwood.
We did Mickelson Trail in late Aug. It was 93 degrees at the southern end when we got back to the vehicle. Started at southern end, went north for two days, then back south for two days. If I was going to trim part of the trail off my plan, the southern-most 20 or so miles was the least enjoyable. Try to avoid the time slot for the Sturgis bike rally.