The entire 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway is a designated bike route with low speed limits, light traffic, and limited access. Many riders spend a week or more traveling down the Trace and shuttling back to their starting point in Natchez or Nashville, but here’s a little secret. You can see some of the most scenic sections with only a day of riding with the Natchez Trace Century Ride!
The Natchez Trace Century is an annual cycling event in Ridgeland, Mississippi, held on the first weekend in May. It gives riders a taste of the Trace with local law enforcement managing traffic.
Mississippi’s mild spring gives riders of all abilities a chance to jumpstart their cycling season, with ride lengths ranging from 8 to 25 miles, 50 to 65 miles, and 100 miles. The namesake 100-mile century ride features almost half its course along the Trace, six water/food stops, and 12 miles of waterside cycling along the 33,000-acre Barnett Reservoir. After the ride, enjoy a picnic lunch and live music at the finish line, and it’s virtually a no-brainer to stay in town for the Santé South Wine & Food Festival, Mississippi’s largest wine and culinary event.
Riding the Natchez Trace Century: Early Morning Start
Photo Credit: George Hopper.
Even though early May is mild, you’ll still want to be off the course before the full brunt of the afternoon heat kicks in. That means the full century and metric century start at 7:00 AM. It’s a big mass start, with roughly 700 riders lined up in Old Trace Park. Individual groups are just beginning to separate when you reach the three-mile-long spillway at the south end of Bartlett Reservoir. That’s more than three times the length of the Big Dam Bridge in Little Rock and a beautiful sight with morning mists rising off the water.
After the first SAG stop at Goshen Springs Campground and a long segment through the Mississippi countryside, you cross the water again. If you’ve joined up with a new group of riders, be sure to check if they’re doing the full or metric century at the second SAG stop (Zion Church), as the courses split 2.5 miles after the stop. After the split, the course gets mighty quiet, with 12 miles of riding on country roads and only a single turn. You don’t need a lot of signs to follow the route, but you start doubting yourself after a while of not seeing route markings or other riders. After a while, you see a well-marked turn that takes you a half mile onto the Trace and to a SAG stop shortly after that.
Riding the Natchez Trace Century: Riding the Trace
Photo Credit: Ed Coleman.
The ride’s second half is entirely along the Trace except for the final mile into the finish line. The first segment along the Trace is roughly 8 miles out and back. It’s a brilliant course design to re-use the stop and an opportunity to see the lead groups’ grace, beauty, and coordination as they are heading back from the turnaround.
After the out-and-back, it’s a fast ride as you drop 100′ over six miles, with plenty of trees lining the Trace to block the crosswinds. It’s a short segment, too, only 13 miles to the River Bend Picnic Area. I assume there are limited pullouts along the Trace large enough to hold a SAG stop because there are only 4 miles between the final SAG stop at the Yockanookany Trailhead and the finish line.
The final ten miles are gorgeous as the Trace runs alongside the western edge of Bartlett Reservoir. Our peloton decided to push past the final SAG stop and soon split into two groups of faster and slower riders. The slow group didn’t form quickly enough to keep me from being dropped off the back and pedaling at my own pace. I was good and ready to enjoy all the B’s at the finish line party: burgers, beer, and bluegrass.
Things to do in Ridgeland: Eat Delicious Food
Photo Credit: Ed Coleman.
Dining in Ridgeland is a classic Southern experience that is not to be missed. If you like fast boats and open water, Pelican Cove on the shores of “The Rez” (Barnett Reservoir) is for you. It’s everything you’d expect from dockside dining, including plenty of fried seafood and blended drinks. If you want to be just a little healthier, order a basket of Royal Red Shrimp. With their size and a taste that’s a bit like lobster mixed with scallops, it’s no wonder they’re considered the crown jewel of the Gulf!
Local 463 Urban Kitchen features award-winning chef Derek Emerson’s unique take on Southern comfort food. The Dr. Pepper-braised short ribs melt in your mouth, and my riding partner, George, said the honey-rosemary fried chicken was the best he’d ever tasted.
Gulf seafood and fine dining work for breakfast, too. Anjou is everything you’d expect with a head chef who was a personal chef to a French foreign minister and a location only 200 miles away from the Big Easy. The Biloxi Omelet stuffed with crabmeat, shrimp, and mushrooms topped with Hollandaise and served with a cup of French onion soup is a great way to refuel after a long ride. If you rode the full century, you might even have room for the house’s special savory zucchini beignets with creamy feta.
If this all sounds too good, you can take a one-night tour of the Ridgeland culinary scene at the Santé South Food and Wine Festival. It’s Mississippi’s largest wine and culinary event that features more than 120 exceptional wines and food samples from many of the state’s top restaurants. Luckily for riders, it runs concurrently with the Natchez Trace Century weekend. I would consider Ubering in so you can take full advantage of the generous wine tastes. I tend to be a bit of a lightweight after a full day of riding.
Things to do in Ridgeland: Explore the Natchez Trace
Photo Credit: Ed Coleman.
Returning home via the Natchez Trace is only a short detour for many visitors. One hundred miles to the southwest is Natchez, Mississippi’s first capital, where the Trace reaches the Mississippi River. Elvis’ birthplace, Tupelo, is 150 miles to the northeast.
In between are many roadside stops, like the Cypress Swamp, which is only 20 miles outside of Ridgeland. There are plenty of casual cyclists cruising up and down the Trace on any given weekend, so you’d be in good company if you’re looking for a post-race recovery ride to round out your weekend.
Training for the Natchez Trace Century
Photo Credit: Ed Coleman.
The Natchez Trace Century is an early-season ride, so your training profile depends on how much riding you can do during the winter. I live in Huntsville, Alabama, which allows me to keep up on mountain biking over the winter and start group rides as soon as daylight savings starts.
A rule of thumb is that you want your final training rides to be at least 80% of the course length or 80 miles for a full century. My longest training ride was only 70 miles, which might have been why I was dropped off the back at the final stage. I also need to be smoother sliding back into the paceline after a pull, especially since I didn’t have the legs to catch up and hop back on.
I used the Farm to Fork ride in Hattiesburg as a final training ride for the Natchez Trace Century, which makes for an excellent bike event combination. If I had time, I would have spent an entire week cycling along the Gulf Coast on the Tammany Trace, New Orleans, Coastal Mississippi, and maybe even Gulf Shores.
Sandwiching a week of riding between Farm to Fork and the Natchez Trace Century makes an excellent bike vacation, especially for northern cyclists who have chilly riding waiting for them back home.
Final Thoughts on Riding the Natchez Trace Century
Photo Credit: Ed Coleman.
Ridgeland is an affluent suburb of Jackson, Mississippi’s capital city and largest metropolitan area. It has more excellent restaurants than you could possibly visit in a single weekend and enough chain hotels that you should be able to find a room with reasonable planning. The hotels do fill up for this weekend, so you will want to book in advance.
Booking early is especially important if you have a brand preference or want to ensure your hotel is serving breakfast early enough for a 7:00 start. There are enough people coming into town that many hotels will offer a special race-day breakfast for early riders.
The Rez, Trace, and Santé South Food and Wine Festival are reasons enough to spend the weekend in Ridgeland. Another delightful stop was the William Lowe Bill Waller Crafts Center, which features displays from local artists and hand-crafted for-purchase items that I would actually put in my house. A week or two after the Natchez Trace Century, the Bill Waller Mississippi Craft Center hosts walks to see the South’s most impressive population of synchronous “snappy sync” fireflies. This could be a reason to return to Ridgeland or extend your stay. You could even sandwich the Gulf Coast bike tour discussed earlier between the Century Ride and Snappy Sync Fireflies. Part of the beauty of Ridgeland is that options and opportunities abound!