It all starts Sep 17 - The Cycling Duo rides again - CycleBlaze

September 12, 2022

It all starts Sep 17

What? You expected to see bike touring experiences in this update? Well, it doesn't start until Sep 17, but I'm here to inform you what will start on Sep 17. And it does indeed involve bikes.

I haven't been too active since last year when we rode from Maine to Rhode Island (you can read about that at https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/newenglandcoast/). This past year has been filled with helping my mom move to an assisted living facility, and since that's in CT and we're in GA, it's taken multiple flights and car trips to do all of that. The other thing is we bought a boat and have been spending time learning to handle it (never owned a boat before) and traveling weekends to maintain the boat along the SC coast. 

Dinner aboard "Belle Amie" - our new vessel, which has taken away touring time this year. I won't say we drank all the wine, but I won't say we didn't, either.
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But fret not! We're BAAAAACCKK! With tour planning requirements of "no trafficked roads" and "no camping" on this tour, I set my sights on either the Erie Canal or the Katy Trail. The Erie would take a few days longer, and I didn't have the days off of work to make that trip work, and the Katy was only a 9-hour drive away and less days on the bike. So, Katy it is! We were able to book hotels/inns/rooms along the way and with the exception of about 22 miles on roads with shoulders/sidewalks, I think I met all the requirements.

There's a lot of "twos" on this trip:

  • We're a duo, in that two of us are riding
  • Each of our bikes has two wheels
  • We both have two bags on our bikes
  • It's been too long since we've gone on a multi-day tour
  • Happy to journal our adventure

We're riding westward, parking the car in St Louis, riding to St Charles, and then west along the Katy until Sedalia, where we'll catch Amtrak and return. I rode from Kansas City east until I hit Jefferson City, where I bailed after 3 days of rain, and had another 3 in front of me. So I return and visit the eastern sections of the trail this trip, and see it from a different direction. Currently, the weather looks good.

Aside Lake Carrollton along the Carrollton, GA greenbelt. One of our favorite day rides in the area. This was earlier this year before the hot summer days took hold of the southeast US.
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