More About the Route

March 9, 2024

What Went Into the Grinder? And What Came Out?

John's Story

Once we landed on the concept of Gulf Coast to Canada for a ride, there were still some thoughts to be thought. How did we decide on Pensacola to Winnipeg? I touched on this in the first journal entry, but I love explaining my thought process. It might be useful for someone considering a similar ride. Did I tell you I was a planner?

Starting Point

Once I discounted the idea of starting someplace far south like Brownsville, TX or Key West, FL, I turned my attention to the upper Gulf Coast from, say, Houston east to the Florida panhandle. I though we'd need someplace with a decent sized airport to fly into, so I narrowed it down initially to Houston, New Orleans and Mobile. Let's work our way west to east.

Houston

What did Houston have going for it other than two big airports and food from any cuisine on the planet? It was hard to come up with a long list. Supposedly Houston is the 29th most bike friendly large city in the nation (https://anytimeestimate.com/re...). I lived in southwest Houston for 7 years, albeit 30 years ago, and biked a lot around my part of the metro area (Sugarland, Missouri City), and the thought of riding through Houston today, as much as it has grown and as much busier as it has become is not at all appealing, regardless of how "bike friendly" it's supposed to be. I note that the ACA Southern Tier route steers clear of Houston in a wide arc to the north, whereas it goes right through New Orleans and Mobile.

Was there anything else particularly against Houston's favor? Two things. It's not on the coast. We'd have to ride 40-70 miles or more (depending on the airport) to Galveston to start at the water, then backtrack. And then there's the big one: it's Houston! 'Nuff said.

New Orleans

Big airport. Great food. Surprisingly, to me anyway, is New Orleans' rank as 12th most bike friendly large city in the country. Still, it's not on the water (at least not the ocean). It's almost 100 miles from the airport to Venice on the Mississippi River delta, and somewhere close to Venice we might be able to see the ocean across the marshes. Then we'd have to backtrack. We couldn't go east from New Orleans to get to the Gulf shore on the Mississippi coast at Waveland or Bay St. Louis without riding almost 90 miles north to Bogalusa, LA, then back south over 60 miles. Why? Because only two highways leave New Orleans going east, I-10 which is illegal to ride on a bicycle, and US90 which used to be rideable until they closed the bridge across the Pearl River in 2022 (it may be replaced by 2028). This has put a kink in the Southern Tier route as well, since it is routed through New Orleans to the Mississippi coast on US90.

There look to be three ways north and west out of New Orleans, all of which take you away from the Gulf of Mexico and a waterfront start.

There's the 26 mile long causeway across Lake Ponchartrain that I wouldn't ride on a bicycle on a bet (although I'm certain some folks do). No shoulder. Just the bridge railing on either side of the traffic lanes. A bailout would be over the rail and into the lake. Only a couple miles of causeway across Youngs Bay between Astoria and Warrenton, Oregon last summer were enough for me.

Following old US51 to Hammond, LA, and then continuing north more or less parallel to I-55 would be doable and take us to Jackson, MS, where we could get onto the Natchez Trace. The global heatmaps on Ride With GPS, however, don't show a lot of bicycle traffic along this corridor. In my mind lack of riders could correlate to lack of services or poor riding conditions.

Following the Mississippi River upstream to Baton Rouge (the Southern Tier and Great Rivers South routes use this) and continuing north would take us to Natchez, MS, and the southern terminus of the Natchez Trace. The greatest thing in favor of this alternative is that Adventure Cycling already has the details of the route worked out. We'll keep this in our hip pocket.

Mobile

There are definitely mixed opinions about whether Mobile is a bicycle friendly city. They say they are, but there's a bit of commentary out there on the galactic interweb that would argue otherwise. Do you know of any cities that admit that, no, they are not bicycle friendly? Let's put that aside for a moment. After all, I live in what is considered one of the least bicycle friendly cities in the country. Oklahoma City ranks 47 out of the 50 most populous cities in this regard.

Decent sized airport, with multiple flight options, less than 40 miles from the Gulf of Mexico at Dauphin Island. Great seafood and southern cuisine I'm sure. The Underground Railroad route starts at Mobile and heads north to eventually intersect the Natchez Trace and the Great Rivers South route (after 400+ miles). Great Rivers South would then take us to the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, MO.

What with all the maps scattered across my desk, my eye was drawn to an unlikely alternative I hadn't initially considered.

Pensacola

Pensacola, Florida, is about 60 miles southeast of Mobile as the crow flies. Being a tourist town with a substantial military presence, it has an airport with multiple flight options. I noticed that if we left Pensacola we could travel west along the shore of the Gulf instead of riding to it and having to backtrack, then cross on the ferry to Dauphin Island and head up to Mobile. The extra mileage from Pensacola to Mobile would be close to the same as riding from the airport in Mobile to Dauphin Island and backtracking to the start of the Underground Railroad route.

The Punch Line

So in the end Pensacola won out as the starting point.

It turns out that considering airports and flight schedules was almost superfluous; I say ALMOST superfluous because airports are handy places to deal with rental vehicles. Both Ed and I now plan to drive to Pensacola.

Ed will get a one-way van rental and spend two days driving his eight-foot-long aircraft carrier of a recumbent from home in northern Ohio to Pensacola.

My wife and I will drive two days to Pensacola in one of our vehicles (she offered, honest!), then she will drive a day back to her sister's house in the Memphis area to catch a flight to Hawaii to visit our older daughter.

OK, Day 0 is Settled. Then What?

Once Pensacola and Winnipeg were nailed down as starting and ending points, it remained to stretch the string between them.

I pored over Adventure Cycling maps of the Undergound Railroad, Great Rivers South, Southern Tier and Northern Tier routes. I created routes in Ride With GPS with information I could find online about the Mississippi River Trail in all the states from Louisiana to Minnesota. Where the existing routes put the path on one side of the Mississippi River, I laid out alternatives on the other side. I found a Minnesota State Bicycle Map in my files. I looked at the global heatmaps on Ride With GPS to see where other cyclists have recorded rides in the past two years. I compiled notes on services available and the amount of climbing along all of the route alternatives. I do love a shower at the end of the day, so finding campgrounds with those facilities was important. The occasional bike shop would be nice. Are there friends or relatives along the way? Warmshowers hosts? Breweries?!

In the end, the itinerary we put together became pretty much a Frankenstein creation that didn't use many of the Adventure Cycling route segments I looked at. That took more digging to suss out the information needed to finalize the plan.

Here's what we put together, with a bit of explanation.

Pensacola, FL to Brandon, MS

Ride west on the Southern Tier route along the Florida beaches from Pensacola to the ferry to Dauphin Island, AL., then as far as Ocean Springs, MS. We decided not to follow the Underground Railroad route north from Mobile primarily because the services seemed pretty few and far between compared to the chosen alternative. We'll skirt to the north around Biloxi and Gulfport to Hattiesburg and then Brandon, just east of Jackson. Well get to ride on the Longleaf Trace, one of the few long paved bike trails in Mississippi.

One of my nephews will host us in Brandon.

Brandon, MS to Lake Cormorant, MS

From Brandon it's less than 15 miles to the Natchez Trace and the Great Rivers South route, which we will ride to Tupelo. From Tupelo we leave the Trace and head to Lake Cormorant, just south of Memphis. We could have continued on the Trace to near Nashville, TN before heading northwest, or left the Trace north of Tupelo where it intersects the Underground Railroad route, but we decided to forego the fun climbing that would have awaited us in those parts of Tennessee and western Kentucky. Besides, those alternatives would have taken us farther from the Mississippi River, which figures prominently in the rest of our tour.

Ed and I have three siblings who live in Tupelo or nearby Saltillo, so we will make Tupelo our first rest day. We also have a nephew who works at the local bike shop in Tupelo. We will stay with Ed's wife's cousin in Holly Springs and one of my sisters-in-law at Lake Cormorant. That will exhaust our supply of southern relatives who can host us. There are a lot more in the area but we can only stay with one at a time!

Lake Cormorant, MS to Cape Girardeau, MO

From Lake Cormorant we head north to Memphis. Now Memphis (#46) ranks only one notch higher than Oklahoma City on the list of bicycle friendly large cities, but it has some things going for it. There are trails along the Mississippi River that take us most of the way across the downtown area. I graduated high school in Hernando, MS just 15 miles south of Memphis and lived in the area for 7 more years while I attended Northwest Mississippi Junior College, Ole Miss and eventually grad school at Memphis State (now University of Memphis), so I have some familiarity with Memphis. That familiarity comforts me in some ways and discomforts me in others. Communicating with some Warmshowers hosts in Memphis provided some guidance on the use of certain roads and highways.

There are no real real bike route alternatives on the west side of the river in Arkansas from what I could see, so we will be staying on the east side of the river through western Tennessee to the ferry across the Mississippi River to Missouri at Hickman, KY. From there we will follow the Mississippi River Trail (more or less) to Cape Girardeau, where we plan to spend a rest day.

The important thing to know about the Mississippi River Trail (MRT) is that it is not a bike path; it is a route. To quote the National Park Service website, "For the most part, the MRT follows the shoulders of low-volume paved roads, and makes every effort to provide the safest and best bicycling experience along the length of the Mississippi River." The quality of information about route resources varies from state to state. From my route planning research it's far better developed the farther north you travel. I could find very little information on the MRT for Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky. The info is better for Missouri, Illinois and Iowa. It's much better for Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Cape Girardeau, MO to St. Charles, MO

We had three good options leaving Cape Girardeau. Continue on the MRT on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River. Cross the river and follow the MRT on the Illinois side. Leave the river for 250 miles to follow the Great Rivers South route through Missouri, bypassing St. Louis completely.

The St. Louis Bypass, as I termed the third option, was originally our top choice, until I drilled into it in more detail, and discovered how much climbing would be involved. The planners of the Great Rivers South route must have thought, "You know, I bet those people wanting to follow the Mississippi River would really enjoy a break from all that river scenery and appreciate several days riding through the guts of the Ozarks." Well, you know, Ed and I rode west to east across Missouri twice in recent years on different routes, plus we had another dose of western Missouri hills last summer on our tour. We have a deep appreciation for riding in the Ozarks and other hilly parts of Missouri. It didn't take any argument from Ed of the Recumbent Aircraft Carrier to choose one of the other options.

After comparing the resources along the MRT on each side of the river, I decided to route us on the Illinois side. We'll cross the Mississippi River to Illinois at Cape Girardeau, and after about 20 miles we'll be on the Illinois MRT. We'll follow the MRT as far as East St. Louis, where we'll cross the Mississippi River to St. Louis. From there it's around the east and north sides of St. Louis to cross the Missouri River to St. Charles. We stayed with my wife's cousin in St. Charles last year, and will do so again.

The Crossing of the T will occur when we come off the bridge over the Missouri River at St. Charles and cross over the Katy Trail beneath us.

St. Charles, MO to Hannibal, MO

We'll head north from St. Charles to cross the Mississippi River back into Illinois on the Golden Eagle Ferry, and follow the Illinois MRT (mostly) to cross the Mississippi River again to Hannibal for our last rest day.

We'll divert off the MRT to Kampsville, IL to take advantage of the only tent campground along this stretch.

Hannibal, MO to Quad Cities

We had two route choices leaving Hannibal. On the east side of the river it would be the Great Rivers South route / Illinois MRT. On the west side of the river it would be follow US61 to Keokuk, IA (Missouri has not designated the MRT route north of Hannibal) to pick up the Iowa MRT.

We decided on Great Rivers South, so we'll recross the Mississippi River from Hannibal to Illinois and head north. We will stay on the Illinois side where Great Rivers South crosses the river to Burlington, IA, but we will leave the MRT towards Galesburg, then north to Moline and the Quad Cities International Airport.

We will both get one-way vehicle rentals at the airport to drive home.

A Warmshowers host in Galesburg will entice us away from the river for the final couple days of this year's tour.

Part Two Next Year - On to Winnipeg!

Planning for the second part of the tour next year isn't as far along as this year's route. From Moline, IL we'll follow the Illinois MRT, then the Wisconsin MRT until we cross the Mississippi River again to Winona, MN. From there's we'll take a side trip to Rochester to see my goddaughter, then back to river and up to Minneapolis. From Minneapolis we'll follow the Minnesota MRT to Itasca State Park (the headwaters of the Mississippi River) and Bemidji.

The route from Bemidji will probably be west on US 2 to Erskine then north on US59 into Canada and on to Winnipeg. I'm registered to ride the Tour of Minnesota this June, so I hope to have the opportunity to pick the brains of some Minnesota bikers on route options farther north. Stay tuned.

The best laid plan for next year, as it stands today.

Ed’s Story

And I helped.🤣 Sometimes it takes as much time to review the options. I audited nuclear power plant quality programs in the second half of my career so I used that ability to provide constructive feedback.🤔

On a side note building on what John noted about the Missouri hills, selecting the route from Cape Girardeau to St Louis along the east side of the river vice bypassing St Louis to the west saved almost 10000 ft of climbing.

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Moe NagatyBest wishes to both of you.
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