Biking from Nashville to Natchez

I had never heard of the Natchez Trace before Aaron mentioned it to me earlier this summer. We were discussing what our early summer adventure should be, and Aaron (being a closet southerner) was pushing for it. This was actually ideal, because nowadays when it comes to stuff like this, I try to do as little research as possible. It’s not going to be an adventure if you already know the route. So with that, we rented a pickup truck and headed off to Nashville.

We arrived into town just before sunset and dropped the rental off at the airport. The northern terminus of the trace is just a little south west of downtown so overall it’s pretty convenient. Cutting across Nashville by bike was surprisingly efficient. They have a decent tail network and the drivers were considerate.

By the time we got to the parkway entrance, the sun had set almost an hour ago and the temperature was still hovering in the mid 80’s. The air was stagnant and since we both forgot our lights we decided to call it a night.

Our first full day of biking was great. There are no real hills on the trace so we ended up logging just over a hundred miles. We didn’t go in with any expectations or goals, so hitting the century mark was just a good reason to retire for the day.

Because the trace is a parkway, it has fewer connections with the surrounding road network. This meant resupplying was a little less convenient than usual and so we typically stopped twice a day: once in the morning and again later on around dinnertime. As a result, we were carrying a lot more water than usual.

Most of the time you actually can’t see much, occasionally though a break in the trees would reveal a world beyond the trace.

Throughout the trip the temperature never cracked triple digits, but mid 90’s with 100% humidity and the southern sun beating down all day made it a total soup kitchen. I have an old miniworks filter that I take everywhere as a sort of insurance policy. We ended up using it several times…

Overall I would describe the scenery along the trace as: meh. It’s definitely not bad, but it’s also not great. It’s essentially a tree lined road across relatively flat ground. I suppose the three hour bike ride between my home and Harriman State Park has unfortunately set a pretty high bar for outdoor splendor.

Luckily, it’s not just natural beauty that’s unevenly distributed. So too are things like good food and hospitality for which Mississippi happens to be quite the outlier. This for us meant that we ate like kings for basically every meal. Good food is practically falling out of the sky down here. At one point, I was putting down a round of peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream between every dish. It had become the palate cleanser between rounds of fried chicken and collard greens. Between collard greens and bbq ribs. And between bbq ribs and bread pudding. I wouldn’t describe it as out of control, but there were some stares.

On trips like this, life tends to simplify down to levels unreachable during normal life (even vacation life). The daily struggle of dealing with the heat and trying to hit the century mark is immensely satisfying. Enjoyment comes in the form of seeing highway mile markers pass by and happiness is the default.

After four days of 100 mile rides, we had reached the last day on the trace. It was only about 70 miles, but we were racing another incoming thunderstorm. We lucked out this time though and were able to get into town and find a hotel before the downpour started.

Natchez is really nice. It’s like a less pretentious Nyack with spanish moss. Since it was overcast with intermittent rain we spent the remaining afternoon inside enjoying the air conditioning, gorging on cheap Italian food, and watching John Wick.