This summer, my nephew Robbie and I are signed up for the Katy Trail Ride, a supported tour of Missouri’s Katy Trail State Park. The ride starts in Clinton and ends in St. Charles, and covers about 225 miles over five days.

As this is my nephew’s first bike trip of any kind, and really his first extended time on the bike, the Katy Trail ride should make an ideal first tour. Being that the Katy is a rail-trail conversion, the grade is mild (no hills), there is no traffic to contend with, it’s nearly impossible to get lost, and with a surface of crushed limestone, speeds are very modest. Add to that the great Missouri scenery, charming river towns, and the historic aspect (much of the trail follows the path used by Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806), and I think this has the makings of an excellent and memorable bicycle tour.

The only thing that can derail the fun is lack of preparation. No matter how easy the ride, it’s still a long trip, with several 50-plus mile days, and if someone is not physically prepared to ride, they are not going to have a good time, and will likely be in considerable pain.

And that’s the aspect where I’m actually rather concerned. My nephew has known about the trip since January, and has been committed since March, but he hasn’t been training very much. His longest ride of the year so far has been ten miles, and he probably has put in fewer than fifty miles all told. With only three weeks until the start of the trip, he has some serious training to do.

This weekend I made a trip to his home at Holts Summit and took him on a couple of bike rides. He hasn’t much experience with riding in traffic, so I wanted to get him started, teach him the rules of the road, and help him feel comfortable riding on the streets and highways. He lives near the Katy Trail, so could do all his training on the trail itself, but I don’t want him to get bored with the trail, plus I think he should be riding some hills. He has to build up his legs fast, so hard miles are as important as raw mileage.

Saturday we did 17 miles, a round-tripper from Holts Summit to New Bloomfield and back. This is a largely flat route, with only a couple moderate hills. Sunday we rode the same route, only not quite as far – a little over 10 miles total. Robbie was sore from Saturday, which was both a good and bad sign. Good because it showed that he was being stretched out, bad because it showed how far he has to go.

To complicate matters, he’s riding a department store mountain bike. It’s not a great bike, but it should be adequate for the task. I’d have felt better if he was riding a good-quality used bike, but it’ll do. I rode it and everything appeared functional. He added a padded seat cover to the bike, and I installed a cyclocomputer and gave him some padded shorts and riding gloves.

I set him up with a training schedule, telling him that he needs to rest at least one day a week, and increase his longest ride of the week by about 15 miles per week. Starting at about 15 miles, weekly distances of 30, 45, and 60 miles should get him where he needs to be.

Robbie’s 16, so he has youth in his favor, and he’s also in reasonably good physical condition. And now that he’s out of school for the summer, he should have more time to train. And he seems committed. Still, getting enough miles in his legs, and enough saddle time, will be a challenge. I think he’s going to be able to pull it off, but it’s going to be close.