Katy Trail

Awesome experience! We biked 20 miles on a day trip last week. Beautiful weather and fun stops along the way.

How could you give anything but five stars to the Katy Trail? It’s just the perfect weekend recreation for St. Louis if you have a bike or don’t mind springing for a rental. Okay, it’s not the place to go if you want a challenge. The hills are, well, non-​existent pretty much, which makes it a great ride for the whole family.
Pick your spot to set out. We recently took off from Klondike Trail Head and rode down to Augusta and back. It’s a short ride, and the Augusta Brewing Co. has a great patio area for you to enjoy a craft beer in the shade.
On a previous visit, we headed west from Augusta and that was a fun ride, too. Lots of farmland.
If you don’t have a bike, it’s very easy to find a rental spot, including one we used in Defiance and a new one on the Trail in Augusta.

Very Scenic! Great for biking, walking, jogging, or hiking! Passes through many parks and stops and is very level but has many trails that branch off of it, that accommodate the hikers! Pack a picnic basket and stop for a picnic or take a water bottle for a nice workout! Great for all activities!

We finally explored the Katy Trail yesterday and it was awesome! I highly recommend it if you like biking, or even jogging/​walking. We started from the Greens Bottom parking lot and biked 20 miles to Augusta, had lunch, then biked the 20 miles back to our car. The whole trail was quite peaceful with a canopy of trees above us most of the time, sporadic views of the Missouri River, a few small bridges, and fun «historic landmark» placards describing the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The website
has everything you ever need to know about housing (if you decide to stay at a bed and breakfast on the multiple stops of the Katy Trail), food, things to explore in each town, wineries, where to rent bikes, etc. We rode past Defiance where a ton of people were renting bikes to start the Katy Trail from there.
The only thing I’d recommend is knowing your limits on how far you can bike! I’d personally never biked more than 15 miles at once, so 40 miles was a LOT for me and I was sore by Mile 25. Also, keep in mind the general rules of biking on a trail and passing other bikers or joggers (yell out «on your left» when passing). Bring lots of water/​Gatorade.
Katy Trail is definitely one of my new favorite things about Missouri with its beautiful quiet scenery! The trail is all gravel but it’s packed down enough that the ride is pretty smooth and I didn’t have any difficulty with loose gravel or anything. I loved that the whole trail is pretty flat and easy – not many hills at all. The bed and breakfast places book up pretty fast in the fall (pretty colors in the trees), so make plans ahead of time if you want to rest and sleep overnight before biking back to your car.

I took my new bike out for its first real ride yesterday at the Katy Trail.
I was really happy with the flat trail, as being new to riding, I am in need of a good flat ride to get my body used to the motions and work, adding elevation changes at this point are just exhausting to both me and my legs!
Katy Trail has plenty of «jump in» points, seemingly every half a mile or so I was passing small lots or makeshift parking areas where people were stopping to take a hike or ride on the trail.
If I had one disappointment it would be the smell. I rode a section of the trail that travels through the Old Town St. Charles area, and the further north I went, the stronger the smell got. I cannot say for sure what it was, but it reminded me of the smell from the steel mill in Granite City. It’s not so much the smell that bothered me, as the way it kind of takes your breath away. When riding several miles, it’s hard enough to regulate breathing, it’s even harder when your breath is being zapped by an odor!
Other than that, I cannot complain about the trail itself. I’m sure the odor is a by-​product of one of the factories or shops around the area. It’s just something to keep in mind when choosing which section of the trail to enjoy.

Love the Katy Trail. Not really more to say its a great way to get exercise. Only prob I have seen is people need to pick up after there dogs lol yuck. Besides that once you get out there a ways you can take a detour to creve coeur lake.

The Katy Trail is such a simple thing — a path of packed gravel, a railroad track’s width but a whole state’s length. It meanders through towns, cities, countryside, wineries, an miles and miles of beautiful Missouri countryside.
One of my favorite times on the Katy Trail was renting bicycles in Defiance, and riding down to Mattson. That area is right along the Missouri bottoms, and there were flat fields of row crops as far as the eye could see. The trail itself was flat and open, yet shaded with tall trees. There were many interesting rock formations along the way, and a nice cool breeze coming right down the trail. We had a nice cool drink in Mattson and then rode back. We passed people now and then along the trail, and nodded our greetings… and then made up stories about how they came to be there. We had a lot of laughs, and still managed to get exercise. When we were done, we knew that there was still a lot of Katy Trail waiting to explore — and plenty of time to do it!

I’ve lived in a lot of places, the Katy trial is a local gem. Meandering along some of the most beautiful parts of the Missouri river, checkered by small towns and unique shops, its a quickly becoming a multi national destination.

Love the Katy Trail and Frontier Park. I sometimes start my ride here and go to Creve Coure park and back.
I really want to do the entire trail from here to Clinton but haven’t worked up to that yet.
Great Park and Trail.

Love the Katy Trail!!! Beautiful one on one dates with nature! Running, walking, riding… and nearly everyone you meet along the way is super friendly! Definite must for anyone in the vicinity to check it out!

Can’t say I am much of a fan of riding my bike on gravel. It has always been something that I struggled with more than enjoyed. However, I love this trail for all that it’s worth.
The trail is enormously long and you can either bike the flatter parts near old town St. Charles or really go for it and ride it all they way out to Herman. The scenery on this trail is amazing. You are biking along the Missouri River and the views are just gorgeous. If you are biking through wine country, it’s very popular to stop along the wineries along the way. I must warn you, this seems like a better idea when you are doing it than when you have to bike back to your origin. I suggest parking a car at the end of your trail and then piling in that car with your bikes to get to the car at your point of origin (with a designated driver of course).
It’s great to bike or to walk, and if you don’t own a bike, you can rent them easily from a store in Old Town St. Charles (or if you don’t want to tear your bike up driving all the way there or on the gravel, this might be a good move anyway).
Beautiful, historic, and a decent work out. Even though gravel eats up my tires, I love the Katy Trail.

Great for biking or running. Think flat. Really flat. It can be beautiful though. The trail follows the Missouri river valley and the area is often beautiful. The trail goes most of the distance across Missouri, and people often bike from Kansas City to St. Charles or vice versa.
For a fun day trip, you can rent bicycles in Defiance and ride to the wineries in Augusta (about 7 miles away) or go much further out and spend the night in Hermann. If you stop in Augusta, I recommend the Grouper sandwich at the Augusta Brewing Company (beer instead of wine — lord knows Missouri wine isn’t great, but the beer is great).
On nice days, expect the trail to be somewhat crowded with families. Most people take it easy on the trail, but you’ll still find some serious athletes.

I’ve heard about the Katy trail for years, but had never even knew where it was. I’m always looking for new places to Unilocal about, so this past week I sought it out because everyone who ever bikes it seems to love it. I don’t have a bike, so I just drove there, parked and was set to walk it. The scenery was nice, but I ended up going on a day when the allergens were high [when are they not, right?]. I have pretty severe allergies and so I didn’t get very far — I walked about 45 minutes total.
I was on it long enough to talk to some cyclists who thought that I was in trouble — I’m guessing because I was on foot and holding my nose with a tissue and both hands on my face — and they went on and on about how great it was. So, even though a lot of the city is flooding along the rivers, the Katy Trail is still a go — at least in the Weldon Spring and Jacobs area. If you don’t have allergies you should check it out because I’m the only person I know who’s had a less than spectacular time.

If you enjoy cycling or trails or the combination of the two, then the Katy Trail is what spring break is a college student as the Katy Trails is of cyclist. Starting here in the St. Louis area, the Katy Trail stretches across most of Missouri, but here the trail offers a lot to see.
Biking along it you get to see the river and make your way into wine country, which, makes for a nice afternoon pit stop. Of course after riding your bicycle and drinking some wine you might not feel up to riding all the way back, so you could always have someone who is more athletically challenged or just doesn’t feel like riding a bike meet you at the winery or you can ride back.