We just got back from a 3-day bike camping trip! We road 4 different trail systems that all link up seamlessly to give us a direct route from Marysville, KS to Lincoln, NE.
Day 1: We started in Marysville, KS on the Blue River Trail that heads north towards the KS/NE boarder. It’s about 12 miles where it connects to the Chief Standing Bear trail. Both these trails are relatively new and you can tell the locals have put a lot of time and effort into making them enjoyable. Chief Standing Bear has several new trail heads along its route explaining the history of the Ponca Tribe and their “relocation” to Oklahoma. The Chief Standing Bear trail ends in Beatrice, NE where we ditched the trail to head out to the Homestead National Monument. We’ve driven by many times and this was our chance to stop.
After lunch and the visit to Homestead National Monument we linked up with the Homestead trail that would lead us to Lincoln, NE. We planned on camping at a lake about 20 miles south of Lincoln. Thank goodness for summer time sunsets because we didn’t even leave Beatrice until 5 pm. This was the point of our trip where I started to feel like it was taking forever to make any mileage. Ah, riding fully loaded on rail trail gravel is more tortoise than hare.
We made it to Stagecoach State Recreation Area and had our tent set up well before sunset.
Day 2: From Stagecoach State Recreation area we detoured on gravel roads to get back to the Homestead trail. One little catch…we were using google earth and didn’t see that intersection of the road and trail was actually a bridge over the trail. A little downhill hike and we were back on track. The morning hours ticked by and before we knew it we were in Lincoln, NE linking up with the Jamaica trail that would lead us to downtown. We had sent a quick text to our daughter’s fiancé to see if he was at work and not only got a chance to see him but our daughter was in town too.
We hung out in Lincoln long enough to visit and eat lunch and enjoy their protected bike lanes! I heart protected bike lanes. You can tell they have made a positive impact on the bike culture there. Lots of commuters!
From Lincoln we re-traced our route and road back to Beatrice where we enjoyed a Mexican dinner and camped in their city park- Chautauqua Park. The highlight was that they had showers!!! 2 full days on the trail I could use a shower. We fell asleep before 9:30 pm and barely woke up to the firework display that was a few blocks away.
Day 3: Day three started with a lie in. We didn’t even start breakfast until 8 am. But today was a short day so we weren’t concerned. I should have enough experience to know not to get too cocky on the “easy days”. We only had 37 Miles to ride. These had to be the slowest 37 miles of my life. We started riding the Standing Bear Trail at 9 and didn’t make it to downtown Marysville, KS until 1 pm. The short of it was…we were tired, had a head wind, stopped at every trail head, and changed 2 flat tires. It wasn’t a terrible time on the bike but I just kept thinking “Man, aren’t we there yet?” Eventually we did get there and celebrated with gas station ice cream!
We highly recommend these rail to trail systems. In theory you can ride all the way to Omaha on 90% rail trail starting off in Marysville, KS. The trails were well maintained. There was damaging storms just 2 weeks before we road and while there was evidence of the storm, crews had the trail cleared off all the way through. Impressive for multiple volunteer groups who probably had their own property to get cleaned up as well. We spoke to several people who had either worked on the trail or knew someone who did and they were encouraged that we would come “All the way from Leavenworth, KS to ride their trails.” Ha!
Campsites: Stagecoach Lake, Hickman NE
Chautauqua Park Beatrice NE
You can camp at the trail head in Holmesville, NE too.
