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After work last night, I pulled my bike out and headed for one of the Katy Trail trainheads. It was the first evening in a while where the temperatures were under 90 and the weather forecast called for 30% chance of rain. So things looked pretty good.

I haven’t been riding in a while, so I was just going to go out and see how things went. I was hoping for at least a solid hour and 12 miles. 12mph on a mountain bike is fairly decent. The Katy trail is a relatively flat trail with some long, gradual slopes but no large hills (other than the 100′ steep climb from the trail to the parking lot). Most of the portion I was riding runs on the banks of the Missouri River. Formerly railroad tracks, it’s a packed dirt and gravel trail which makes it a bit slower than pavement, but much easier than mountain trails.

So I get to the trailhead and pull my bike off the rack. That 30% chance of rain quickly dropped 10 raindrops on me as I was gearing up. It quickly stopped and I was on my way. Put in a brisk pace for the first 3 miles to the Green’s Bottom trailhead. That was when the downpour hit.

For the next 5 miles, it poured buckets of water, eventually letting up to a light drizzel. I pushed on for almost 50 minutes and 11.6 miles, in total. Average speed was 15.0 miles per hour. Then I turned around. Still had to go back.

By that point, I was long since soaked. The trail was mucky, at best, and had 1-2″ of standing water on it in many places. And about 1 mile into the ride back, the downpour came back, harder and faster. Took it a lot slower going back. Did keep about an 11-12mph pace. and made it back with a total riding time of 1:44:49 for 23.2 miles. Kept my average speed ove 13mph

Along the trail, I did get to see a few snakes, a young deer, dozens of cardinals, and one river turtle. Despite the massive amounts of rain, it was a good ride. I’ve got to try to do that at least once a week.

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