Wisdom Needed: Natchez Trace Ride

[kppolich]

With a few of the larger gatherings being cancelled, a small group of my buddies and I are thinking about giving the Natchez Trace a shot in September.

Any wisdom on the trail, stopping places, gear to pack, or best direction to ride this thing? Ride will be casual with lots of planned stops to fraternize.

Thanks in advance to the PL braintrust!

[bikinchris]

Originally Posted by kppolich

With a few of the larger gatherings being cancelled, a small group of my buddies and I are thinking about giving the Natchez Trace a shot in September.

Any wisdom on the trail, stopping places, gear to pack, or best direction to ride this thing? Ride will be casual with lots of planned stops to fraternize.

Thanks in advance to the PL braintrust!

There are no stores or even stops on the Trace. There is an occasional picnic stop. You have to get off anytime you want food etc. The road surface is chip n seal. You don't want to run high pressure tires. Bring big touring tires with softer pressure to combat the road buzz.
The speed limit is 45mph and is enforced for the most part. Get a map from the parks dept and plan your stops by how many miles you want to ride.

[GOTHBROOKS]

being a mississippi native, this has been on my bucket list for years.

[robt57]

I used to ride the North Section frequently. The speed limit is 45, except that north section to discourage it from being used as a bi-pass shortcut speedway worth the time savings from Rt96 to Rt100 fwiw.

Being I lived only a few miles from the North Terminus, we'd park behind the Loveless Cafe in a church lot. I think, been over 10 years.

It is coarse pave, but we rode go fast bikes and tires and I do not recall anything but good surface. This was before we all started using 28 @ 75 PSI too.

The resources you'd need should be carefully planned as to availability on line ahead. The exits are sparse, and it is not like a package store is at the bottom of the ramps. So getting to those may take some shoulder routes on road with high speed vehicles mostly.

I will say this, we did quite a few 40-50 mile out and backs, as in each way. So 80-100 miles, and occasionally more a few time a year. It gets very boring very fast, all you will see is the exact same maintained roadway, shoulders etc. And of course farmland rolling when the distance views are present. It kinda just looks the same a lot of the way/time. Just wanted to mention that.

Google, tourers do it all the time all the way to the gulf, should have well documented ifs/ands/buts online.

[Ken Robb]

I drove the whole thing 20 years ago in a big motor home so we could stop at a rest area or historic marker and eat in air-conditioned comfort in the July heat and humidity. It was very pretty. As has been posted above there are no places on the trace to buy anything so you have to pack whatever you will need each day. There are enough roads leaving The Trace to ride into towns nearby so I think you can stay in a town overnight, have breakfast, ride up to The Trace for some lovely riding, eat whatever you picked up in town for your lunch, ride down into another town for dinner and a room. My recollection is that the towns I saw were at lower elevations than the trace so some or all of your morning warm-ups may be uphill. I would prefer riding North to South because though the terrain is rolling it is generally downhill going that way.

[mistermo]

Originally Posted by robt57

It gets very boring very fast, all you will see is the exact same maintained roadway, shoulders etc. And of course farmland rolling when the distance views are present. It kinda just looks the same a lot of the way/time. Just wanted to mention that.
\

I lived in Nashville and also did a few out and backs starting at the Loveless Cafe too. It's nice because of the limited access and lack of traffic. I've done the entire length by motorcycle and indeed it can become boring. I saw armadillos for the first time.

[pinkshogun]

we did it 12 years in april on loaded touring bikes. i recall the pavement was rolling. stores/motels were off the Trace and with help of the guidebook we purchased made it easy to locate them

[robt57]

Originally Posted by mistermo

I lived in Nashville and also did a few out and backs starting at the Loveless Cafe too. It's nice because of the limited access and lack of traffic. I've done the entire length by motorcycle and indeed it can become boring. I saw armadillos for the first time.

I used to MC down a lot further than pedaled myself.

I had a Buell XB9 and 1982 Yami XJ920R, a rare bird. Sold the Buell before moving to PDX 2011, and sold the yami in 2015.
Decided only I would be the motor when on two wheels. Had that since 93. We lived in Fairview. And as nice as the Trace was on a road bike, I spent a lot more time MTBin at the 1000 acre Bowie Nature Park that was a mile from my door.

[madsciencenow]

I’ve done this the past few springs with friends and rented a house and stayed for a few days. It’s the smoothest Tarmac I ride all year and is a nice getaway. We had planned to go this year but the COVID situation forced us to cancel. The goal is to go in October but who knows if this will workout or if we will need to completely ditch the trip.


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[jwalther]

Phil Gaimon recently rode the Natchez Trace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfAEHZu_0RM&t=39s He even replied to my comment !

[bikinchris]

The Trace was a path of least resistance from Natchez back to the start of their raft voyages. There are no steep hills. Natchez itself is a very interesting town. Try to spend a little time there. Another nice town is Port Gibson.