Move in St. Lou: Bik­ing

Peace­ful, calm and serene are all things you will find when vis­it­ing the Katy Trail. The Katy Trail is a 237-mile trail stretch­ing across most of Mis­souri. The trail trav­els through Sedalia, Jef­fer­son City, Her­mann, and St. Charles along the Mis­souri River.

The Katy Trail al­lows a sense of es­cape from the real world. While on it, you feel as if all your trou­bles have dis­ap­peared. It is a great way to re­con­nect with na­ture while sep­a­rated from ve­hi­cles and loud noises. If hik­ing is too much walk­ing for you, but you still want to be out­side, the Katy Trail is the per­fect place. Along with bik­ing, the Katy Trail of­fers hik­ing and eques­trian trails for every­one’s en­joy­ment. 

The park was not ini­tially cre­ated for bik­ing. Be­fore it was a bike trail, it was a rail­road that trav­eled across most of Mis­souri. The Mis­souri State Park’s As­so­ci­a­tion said, “The park, built on the for­mer cor­ri­dor of the Mis­souri-Kansas Texas Rail­road, is 240 miles long and runs be­tween Clin­ton and Machens.” The trail fol­lows towns that once thrived along the rail­road cor­ri­dor. Though the trail is­n’t what it once was, it is a beau­ti­ful way to see Mis­souri’s his­tory while be­ing ac­tive.

Reese Kline, a sec­ond-year phys­i­cal ther­apy ma­jor at Maryville Uni­ver­sity, biked the trail with me. She said, “It was in­ter­est­ing to see how the land­scape changed from one lo­ca­tion to an­other. It kept me oc­cu­pied the en­tire time we were rid­ing.” Ob­vi­ously, we were un­able to bike the en­tire trail, but the sec­tion we did do was mainly over­look­ing corn fields and woods. One minute, you can’t see any­thing ex­cept the trees around you; the next, you can see for miles. 

Reese also men­tioned, “The peo­ple we met were all very po­lite and friendly. They were all cu­ri­ous where we were from and if we biked of­ten.” The Katy Trail gives a sense of what the state of Mis­souri rep­re­sents. Every­one here is kind and car­ing about one an­other. Peo­ple love to be ac­tive and out­doors in their com­mu­ni­ties. If we needed any help or as­sis­tance on the trail, any­one we passed would have been more than will­ing to lend a hand.

The Katy Trail stretch­ing from each end of Mis­souri is unique and ex­cit­ing. You won’t find any­thing else like it in the Mid­west. I en­cour­age every­one to visit the Katy Trail, which is lo­cated clos­est be­tween St. Charles and Chester­field, around twenty min­utes from Maryville Uni­ver­sity.

Fol­low me this se­mes­ter as I find more unique ex­er­cise lo­ca­tions through­out St. Louis!

More in­for­ma­tion on the Katy Trail is avail­able in the link be­low.

https://​mostateparks.com/​kt25#:~:text=Be­fore%20be­com­ing%20a%20­trail%2C%20Katy,and%20­south%20to%20­Galve­ston%2C%20­Texas.