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One of the most common questions about the Katy Trail is which type of tire to use, and whether
road bikes are appropriate. September Brown addressed this question on the
"phred" list,
a mailing list covering long-distance bike touring topics. September graciously allowed me to
reprint this posting, as well as another extremely useful posting about using trailers on
the Katy Trail.
Katy Trail Bike and Tire Selection
I rode the Katy Trail from west to east in June, over five days,
with no rain. My tires are 30/32 WTB Allterrainasaurus, which has a lightly
knobby tread. Days 1, 2, and 5 the surface was firm enough for road tires.
Days 3 and 4, the surface was mixed, with about half the trail firm enough,
and the other half was almost like riding through an inch or two of sand.
In places, it would be firm with patches of soft crushed limestone. In
other places, you'd have two miles of firm, alternating with two miles of
soft stuff. On all five days, there'd be small areas that were more suited
for a touring or mountain bike tire, such as road crossings with large
gravel (more like 1-2 inch rocks). We did see a few road bikes there, but
most people had 28+ tires.
There isn't much coasting on the Katy
Trail. The first day or so isn't hilly per se, but more like a long almost
imperceptable incline, that just keeps going uphill. After a 2 or 3 mile
downhill on day 2, the rest of the trail is practically flat, but even on the
flat parts, you just have to keep pedaling all the time, or your speed drags
down.
The dust is another reason you might want to avoid your road bike
in favor of a less expensive touring or mountain bike. Within the first five
miles, our bikes had a fine coating of white dust on them. We quickly
learned to wipe off the mouthpieces of our water bottles before taking a
slug. At the water stops, you'd see everyone rinsing their bottles before
filling them up. The dust would be pretty thick by the end of the day, and
every night, we'd have to clean off our bikes and chains. It became embedded
in the fabric of our bags, and coated our legs. Now maybe I'm wrong, but it
seems to me that if you had a carbon fiber bike, you'd more likely to
get scratches with all that dust, which could lead to frame failure. Maybe
not from just riding, but when you clean it, you could rub it in, and
cause scratches. Also, you can't help but throw a few rocks as you ride
through 225 miles of gravel. I don't know, but I think I'd just as soon use
a cheaper bike for the trail, and since you don't have any hills
worth mentioning, you could even get a 5 or 10-speed bike from a garage sale,
and use it. That's what one guy did. He got a 10-speed Raleigh for 50
bucks and turned it into a touring bike. He said it was perfect for the
Katy Trail. I doubt I used more than 10 gears on my touring bike.
The trail has two shallow ruts that we all tended to ride in, spaced about as far
apart as your car tires, one rut for bikes going in each direction. Outside
the ruts, the gravel is looser. One of the rangers told me that the softer
parts of the trail get more firm after it rains, but I can't confirm this,
because it was dry when we were on it. My recommendation would be a 30-32c
tire with light to medium tread, such as the Pasela Panaracer. My tread was
just a little too knobby, and I would have liked to have less rolling
resistance. I'd also carry a spare folding tire, because you may have a long
walk to a bike store if you need one. We saw several people on mountain
bikes with tire problems. One guy's tire had split in two places, and he was
several miles from the nearest bike shop. Don't know if it had anything to
do with the trail or if it was dry-rot, but it was enough to make me go out
and order a spare folding tire when I got home. We also saw several people
with flat tubes, mostly those on road bikes, on our particular trip. I
didn't recall any goatheads, just gravel, a few twigs, a couple of dead
possums, and one live snapping turtle. I heard that they have some golf-ball
sized seed pods that fall on the trail when the leaves start to drop.
The trail maintenance was excellent, and they drove each section of the trail
twice a day to pick up large debris and trash, and they told me that they
always go out after it rains, to remove fallen limbs and trees.
Hope
this helps,
September
Trailers on the Katy Trail
If you go self-contained, and if you have a choice of trailers, I
would recommend a trailer with one tire instead of two. The first 95-100
miles is hard-packed gravel, and you could get by with road tires, but the
next 100 miles is softer, and there are places with loose gravel, sand, or
a combination, and they're definitely NOT suited for road tires. The
last 25-30 miles are hard-packed again. A mid-sized width touring tire would
be fine, and a lot of people use MTB tires, but I don't really think you
need to go wide and knobby if you don't have to. They say the trail's
harder packed after it rains, but it was dry when we rode in June. There are
two main ruts along the trail, about as far apart as the wheels on a car,
where people tend to ride, because the trail is firmer in the ruts. There
were a couple of self-contained riders who followed along with our supported
group, and one of them had a two-wheeled trailer. He complained about
really getting bogged down, because the trailer wheels didn't fall into the
rut, but instead were in the softer gravel at the sides of the rut. He ended
up getting off the trail and riding the main highway that roughly
paralleled the trail. The two-laned highway had lots of curves and didn't
have a shoulder, so it wasn't exactly a safe place for anyone to ride. He
was making 6-8 mph on the trail, versus 10-15mph on the road. After awhile,
the trail and the highway split, and we didn't see him anymore. Another guy
had a one-wheeled trailer, and he was making pretty good time on the trail.
He actually got ahead of our group, and then we didn't see him anymore,
either.
Recently, I called www.koolstop.com to ask about buying one of
their Kool Mule trailers. It's similar to the Bob Yak, with one wheel. I
don't think their bag is waterproof, though. The trailer about the same size
as the Bob Yak, but the Kool Mule also carries two panniers in front of the
trailer. They said that they have a couple with chipped paint that they'd
sell for $150. They said the paint just didn't stick where the weld points
are, and it wouldn't be worth their time to strip them and repaint them, so
they would let them go cheap, if anyone was interested. They're not
advertising the chipped ones on their site, and two weeks ago they said they
still had two left.
September
Comments on September Brown's comments about bike, tire, and trailer selection
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