Chain of Rocks - Gateway Arch Ride

This is a trip report for a bicycle ride from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to the Chain of Rocks Bridge in Sept. 2006. We were in St. Louis for a weeklong seminar, and brought our folding bikes along.

The St. Louis bicycle scene is well developed; it's a bike-friendly town. There's quite a few bike paths, there's bike lanes in some city streets, the city even has visitor guides patrolling the downtown area on bicycles.

We found copies of the highly recommended Bike St. Louis map at the downtown visitor center.

Riding after our seminars was a contest between when we were dismissed and sundown. We'd each brought lights in case we ended up out after dark, which turned out to be the case every afternoon we rode.

We departed the Gateway Arch northbound along the Riverfront Trail, which threaded in and out of the flood gates for the first few miles. There were some murals which were very similar to the floodwall murals in Portsmouth, Ohio that we saw during TOSRV.

Once we got out of the city the trail followed the top of the levees. The Riverfront Trail ended about 2 miles short of the bridge, but we had seen it in the distance and found it pretty easily.

The bridge itself is a wonderful bike path, but it seems narrow for an two-way highway. There are a variety of Route66 signs and memorabilia on the bridge, and parking lots with porta-johns on either side.

What is missing, however, is any water fountain anywhere along the ride. We'd started with two small bottles each and we'd used them before arriving at the Chain of Rocks bridge, and it was a very dry ride home. It was a good demonstration of dehydration and of the importance of having enough to drink.

The Riverfront sits on top of the levee on the west bank of the Mississippi, and as the sun started setting the bugs were out in a major way - as we round through the swarms it felt like we were riding through a rain shower.

This was our first long ride on the DaHon folding bikes, and we stopped a few times for mechanicals - mostly the chains coming off, which seemed to improve dramatically when we set the wheels all the way back.

It was very dark by the time we approached the southern end of the Riverfront Trail. The GPS reported it's a 28.1 mile ride. This was a very nice ride which we'd do again, but it is very isolated and there's no water available.