You could say that Carl Edwards and I got off on the wrong foot.

Within maybe 5 minutes of meeting me, dude’s teasing me about my feet. Well, not my feet. My shoes, actually, or “flipflops,” as he calls my cycling sandals (which he ended up liking by the way).

And then, a little later, he’s poking some fun at how I talk. I had mentioned that closed interstate through St. Louis. You know, “Highway Fardy.”

“Can tell you’re from St. Louis,” Edwards quips, before impersonating the St. Louis accent, “Fardy. Highway Fardy.”

Edwards and his buds laugh, and of course, I had it coming. Turnabout’s fair play, because within 2 seconds of meeting Carl Edwards, the NASCAR star from Columbia, Mo., I was teasing him about his choice of shirt.

Which was none.

“Shudda known you wouldn’t be wearing a shirt,” I said.

“Why’s that?” he seemed surprised.

“Mr. Six-Pack Abs,” I answered, in reference to his shirtless, six-pack-abs magazine cover a couple of years back.

“I just don’t like to wear shirts,” Mr. Six-Pack Abs said with a shrug, kindly overlooking my kegger (Mr. Half-Barrell!) tho he’ll soon make note of the flipflops and the St. Louis dialect.

Carl Edwards (left) chats with a business owner along the Katy Trail. Photo by Dave Luecking.

00

99

99

99

99

99

99

And so it goes, the friendly banter, as Edwards’ posse rolls along the Katy Trail on Thursday morning, the last day of what has become an annual three-day bicycle trek for Edwards from Columbia, Mo., through St. Louis to Madison, Ill., for the Nationwide (nee Busch) Series event at Gateway International Raceway.

“If I had flown my plane, it would have taken 18 minutes,” noted Edwards, who owns and pilots a Cessna Citation to races and his numerous appearances.

On the bicycle, the trip is about 180 miles, Edwards estimates, including a side trip off the Katy Trail to overnight Wednesday in Washington, Mo. I rode along for 30 miles of it, joining Edwards and five of his friends in Augusta around 8:15 a.m. Thursday and riding to Creve Couer Lake Park, where I peeled off so Edwards and his posse could go back to enjoying their time together without a journalist interloper in their midst.

Not that I seemed to stifle them in any way. They seemed at ease, just boys being boys out on a summertime adventure. It reminded me of a bunch of kids, riding their bikes and popping wheelies (which Edwards does quite well by the way) and goofing off as they ventured away from home into the great unknown.

“I just really like to have adventures; that’s what this is,” Edwards said, noting that they rode to St. Louis last year, “just to see if we could do it.”

Edwards made the trip with one friend last year, and the crew expanded this year for an escape he relishes for its simplicity, spontaneity and relative anonymity, tho celebrity wasn’t far off the path. On a lunch break at a cafe in Herrmann, he ran into employees from one of his sponsors, Aflac, and across the street, there was a Sav-a-Lot (his Nationwide sponsor) with about 20 posters of him in the window. And then there was the two-person ESPN crew that materialized from time to time to shoot footage for a feature to run Saturday.

Mostly the bicycle trip is a chance to slow down from the 200-mile-per-hour pace that Edwards seems to keep on and off the NASCAR circuit, and a chance to relax and enjoy time with his buds, with whom time is usually limited because of his travel schedule and commitments.

NASCAR’s season officially starts in February with the Daytona 500, though on-track testing actually begins in January. The last race of the season is in November, so with races on just about every weekend in two series — the Sprint Cup Series in which Edwards is a championship contender, and the Nationwide Series that he won last year — Edwards’ schedule is tightly packed.

A few days off at mid-season is, well, heaven sent, which might explain why the minister of the Nationwide Series, Lonnie Clouse, was among the five buds accompanying Edwards this year.

“This is cool,” Edwards says as the group rolls past Defiance. “It’s just nice to be with my friends, and hang out.”

Carl Edwards (second row, left) and his friends riding into Augusta on the Katy Trail on Thursday. Photo by Dave Luecking

Read more about the ride at stltoday.com/10speed.

99

99

99

–30–