KATY Ride Day 1 - Kansas City to Harrisonville

 The bike tour has officially begun, although we are not yet at the KATY Trail. We start the actual trail in Clinton, the day after tomorrow. Today, we rode to Harrisonville, which is halfway to Clinton.

Our hotel, the Seville Plaza, looks pretty cool in the daytime.

I chose this one because Jim had a local bike shop ship his bike to a bike shop in Kansas City, who assembled it for him. This is the most decent and affordable hotel near such a bike shop. 

Two years ago when Max and I attempted the KATY trail, we got off the train in the afternoon and rode 25 miles to a hotel in Lee's Summit. Our route was east from the train station through the historic jazz district (12th Street and Vine) and then south by the NFL stadium, to rail trails. That route went through a bunch of beat-down neighborhoods, which reminded me of the older residential areas in northern Anne Arundel County, and I was wondering if there were any nice parts of KC. 

We rode through the nice parts today. They are south of downtown. Here are some very cool apartment buildings a couple miles south of our hotel.

My impression of Kansas City is that it's very livable.

As we went farther south, we had a nice stretch of rail trail, possibly an old streetcar line, then we went a few miles along the Blue River. The valley is all undeveloped. At one point the road was closed, but we ignored the sign and rode through anyway.

This situation is where the Strava Global Heat Map comes in handy. The heat map makes it clear that lots of people ride bikes through here, and the road is rideable through the closure.

It looks like the closer is because of flooding. There are a lot of washed-out sections.

This section along the river was really great, but unfortunately the river does not keep going in the direction we want to go, so we had to eventually climb out of the valley, to Grantsville, and it was time for lunch.

How about some BBQ?

It's so great when the perfect food option appears right when you need it.

This brisket was fantastic. This place is a total winner. Dunn Deal BBQ.

Unfortuately, when I was leaning my bike on the building there, I gouged my leg real bad on the chainring. It was a bloody mess. After we ate, we rode a few blocks to Walgreens so I could get some disinfectant and bandages. Where I made this very amusing discovery about Missouri.

The dtug stores sell liquor! I've always thought Missouri was chock full of Jesus, but the drug stores sell liquor!

This is also annoying, because in Maryland they won't even let grocery stores sell beer. 

I'm all cleaned up and bandaged now. No big deal.

After Grandview, it's I-41 frontage roads for most of the rest of the day. Twenty miles.

Frontage roads are generally unpleasant, but part of the deal is they tend not to be very hilly since Interstates aren't hilly, and they tend to be direct like Interstates are. We spent a lot of time on a frontage called Peculiar Drive. Which goes to Peculiar Missouri.

They lean in to their peculiarity in Peculiar.

The next town after Peculiar is the last town for today, Harrisonville.

We are at the Harrisonville Inn, which is a clean, cheap, classic Red Dot of Quality motel. Everyone else staying here is working construction. It's across the street from the Quick Trip convenience store, which made the post ride tradition of fetching some beer very convenient.

Neither nor I have ever heard of Quitting Time Beer. We suspect it's a house brand for Quick Trip stores. Jim says he's never heard of a gas station with their own beer, but I reminded him about Royal Farms chicken beer. Quitting Time is cheap and pretty drinkable. It's brewed in Oklahoma somewhere.

We walked across the highway and a parking lot to get dinner at the Branding Iron BBQ.

These ribs were not great. The dry rub was flavorless. The sauce you can add yourself wasn't interesting. I think the best BBQ comes from river cities. This is probably a sign that we have left the Kansas City zone of deliciousness and now we are in farm country.

Here's the Strava track: https://www.strava.com/activities/16099146397