The Ride America Trail Lens
By Mac “The Radventurer”
A Message to the Rider
I didn’t write Ride America to sell a book.
I wrote it to help people ride better, travel smarter, and experience the country on two wheels.
Over the years, I’ve watched thousands of riders roll onto trails with excitement in their eyes… only to finish the day wondering why it didn’t feel the way they expected it to. The scenery was fine. The bike worked great. The weather cooperated.
And yet… something was missing.
They’d ridden a trail, but they hadn’t experienced it.
That’s when I realized most people aren’t choosing the wrong trails.
They’re choosing trails for the wrong reasons.
This short guide exists to fix that.
Not by giving you a list.
Not by telling you where to go.
But by changing how you think about choosing an e-bike trail in the first place.
Because once you see the difference, you can’t unsee it.
Why Some Rides Stay With You
Think back to your favorite ride.
Not the longest.
Not the hardest.
The one that still shows up in your mind when you’re not even thinking about biking.
Chances are, it wasn’t about speed.
Or distance.
Or elevation.
It was about flow.
The way the trail carried you forward without asking too much.
The way the landscape unfolded instead of flashing by.
The way the ride seemed to have a rhythm… pedal, coast, breathe, smile.
Great e-bike trails don’t demand effort.
They invite presence.
Most riders never learn to recognize that difference. They chase mileage, maps, and checklists, then wonder why the magic feels inconsistent.
Unforgettable rides aren’t accidents.
They’re designed… sometimes intentionally, sometimes by history itself.
The Ride America Trail Lens
Most people choose trails by asking the wrong question:
“Where should I ride?”
Experienced riders ask something else entirely:
“What kind of experience am I looking for?”
The Ride America Trail Lens is a way of seeing trails not as lines on a map, but as living corridors shaped by purpose, terrain, and time.
It’s the framework I use to evaluate every trail I ride… long before I care about its name, popularity, or location.
This lens is built on three ideas that quietly separate forgettable rides from unforgettable ones.
Flow Over Force
E-bikes excel when the trail works with you instead of against you.
Some paths fight momentum.
Others amplify it.
The best e-bike trails tend to share a few quiet traits:
• Long, gentle grades
• Consistent surfaces
• Predictable turns
• Minimal abrupt climbing
These aren’t signs of easy riding.
They’re signs of intentional movement.
Trails like this allow you to settle in. Your cadence smooths out. Your breathing slows. You stop staring at your battery percentage and start noticing the world around you.
Flow doesn’t make a ride boring.
It makes it immersive.
And immersion is what people remember.
Story in the Land
Some trails are scenic.
Others are alive.
You can feel it the moment your tires touch the surface. The land has memory. The corridor has purpose. The path wasn’t carved randomly… it was built to move people, goods, or ideas long before bicycles ever showed up.
When you ride a trail like this, you’re not just passing through space.
You’re moving through time.
You don’t need to know the full history for it to matter. You feel it anyway… in the curve of a river, the cut of a canyon, the way towns appear just often enough to remind you that people once depended on this route.
Stories cling to places like these.
They linger in bridges, tunnels, and quiet stretches where the world seems thinner.
When an e-bike lets you slow down just enough to notice, the land starts talking.
Rhythm and Reward
Great trails understand pacing.
Not just how far you ride… but how the ride breaks itself up.
The most satisfying e-bike routes tend to offer natural rhythm:
• Places to stop without planning
• Towns or trailheads spaced just right
• Natural pauses that invite curiosity
• Endpoints that feel earned, not rushed
When a trail offers reward at the right intervals, riders relax. They stop chasing milestones and start enjoying moments.
You refuel without stress.
You explore without pressure.
You linger without guilt.
A trail with good rhythm doesn’t ask how fast you can go.
It asks how long you’d like to stay.
What Most Riders Get Wrong
Most disappointments on the trail come from the same few mistakes:
• Choosing popularity over compatibility
• Confusing elevation with excitement
• Assuming harder means better
• Planning logistics instead of experience
• Treating trails like trophies instead of journeys
None of this comes from bad intentions. It comes from not knowing what to look for.
I made every one of these mistakes myself.
Once you learn to see trails through this lens, the noise falls away.
You stop asking if a trail is worth it.
And start asking what kind of day it will give you.
Where This Leads
The framework you’ve just learned is how I selected the trails for Ride America.
The book is where everything comes together:
• The stories that live in these corridors
• The trails that embody flow, history, and rhythm
• The practical guidance to ride them well
• The maps that turn curiosity into confidence
This guide isn’t meant to replace the book.
It’s meant to prepare you for it.
If this way of thinking resonates with you, you’ll feel right at home in what’s coming next.
What Happens Next
Over the coming weeks, you’ll receive:
• Stories from the road
• Behind-the-scenes insights from building Ride America
• Reflections on trails, travel, and timing
• First notice when the book officially launches
Until then…
Ride safe.
Ride curious.
And when the trail feels right…
Stay on it a little longer.
— Mac
A Sample from the Up Coming New Release: Ride America The Best E-Bike Trails Coast to Coast
CHAPTER 1
THE KATY TRAIL, MISSOURI
America’s Longest Rail Trail, and the Beating Heart of Midwest EBiking
The first thing you notice on the Katy Trail isn’t the scenery, though that comes soon enough.
It’s the quiet.
A kind of peaceful, river valley silence that settles over you the moment your tires touch the crushed limestone.
The world goes soft. The air settles. Even the wind flows more slowly here.
You can hear your breath, the crunch of limestone under rubber, a red-winged blackbird calling from somewhere in the cattails down by the water.
Then, not long after you start rolling, the second thing hits you: This place was made for ebikes.
The Katy Trail stretches 240 miles across Missouri, carving its way along the Missouri River and through towns that still feel like living postcards from another era. It’s the longest developed rail trail in America, but what makes it perfect for ebikes isn’t just its length—it’s the rhythm of the land.
Gentle grades. Sweeping river bends. Tunnels of trees. And the feeling that the trail itself is whispering a story from 150 years ago.
Where the Rails Once Ruled
This path wasn’t always quiet.
It used to shake under the weight of the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad, known simply as the MKT, or the “Katy.” Freight cars, steam whistles, coal dust—the whole industrial heartbeat of early America once thundered down the very line you’re now gliding across with your thumb on the throttle.
Between 1865 and the 1980s, the Katy line carried everything:
- Cattle from Texas ranches
- Grain from Kansas fields
- Timber
- Coal
- Passengers clutching tickets to St. Louis or Kansas City
Engineers leaned out of their cabs as they rounded the river bends, watching the muddy Missouri roll past. Brakemen rode the tops of boxcars in all weather. Station masters in towns like Boonville and Hermann knew every conductor by name.
Then the trains stopped running. The rails were pulled up. The land went silent.
But in 1990, Missouri did something remarkable—they transformed 240 miles of abandoned railroad corridor into one of the most beloved trails in America. What was once iron and steam became limestone and pedal power. The ghosts of the old Katy line now share the path with families on beach cruisers, long-distance cyclists, and ebike riders discovering just how far they can go in a single day.
Some locals still say the trail hasn’t gone completely silent.
The Legend of the River Ghost
Near Rocheport Tunnel—the most photogenic point on the entire trail—there’s an old story.
It’s told in the cafes of Rocheport and the bike shops of Boonville, usually by someone who’s ridden the trail more times than they can count. The details shift depending on who’s telling it, but the heart stays the same.
In the 1880s, a railroad worker named Thomas Welch was inspecting the tunnel late one autumn evening. He was known for being meticulous—always the last one to leave, always double-checking the rail ties, the clearances, the tunnel supports.
That night, a train came through earlier than scheduled. Some say he didn’t hear the whistle. Others say he heard it but thought he had more time.
He didn’t.
The next morning, they found his lantern still burning at the tunnel’s mouth.
Now, on certain foggy evenings—especially in October—riders passing through the tunnel report seeing a faint light moving along the old rail bed. It flickers. It sways. And just when you think it’s getting closer, it vanishes.
Most riders laugh it off. Headlamps, they say. Reflections from the river.
But there are others—usually the ones who’ve ridden the tunnel alone at dusk—who don’t laugh. They just nod quietly, a distant look in their eyes. They’ve seen it. And they know Thomas Welch is still checking the line, making sure it’s safe for the next train that will never come.