Kansas has hills?

Today was such a nice easy day. We spent the entire day riding through the Flint Hills of Kansas. While they are called hills what they actually are are just little bumps that break up the miles of endless wheat, corn, and cow farms. To give an idea of what riding in this hills is like first you just ride at the slightest possible incline, so much that shifting isn't even nessasary for about 2 miles before reaching the top of a hill. Then you ride downhill at the slightest possible decline for about 2 miles. Repeat this for 70 miles and call it a day.

After a few hours of a nice easy cruise along these gentle hills we came to the little town of Newton, Kansas. The main attraction for us was the doughnut shop. Now I'm a fan of doughnuts and would definitely ride 35 miles by noon to get some but these were supposed to be special. This was another one of those small town shops that had been open since then 1950s. Additionally today is National Doughnut day. A day set aside to recognize the greatest pastry ever created. Unfortunately this doughnut shop has some odd hours we were not aware of. They open up at 12:01pm and close at 11:59 am. We had arrived at 12:05. Additionally since today was National Doughnut day they had sold out of doughnuts a long time ago. Luckily the owner saw us by the door looking sad and dejected and took pity on us by offering to sell us bags of frozen day old doughnuts and sandwiches if we so chose. We so chose, picking up a bag of chocolate cake and a bag of cinnamon rolls.

Right across the street from the doughnut shop is an infamous bike shop on the trail. So infamous that I had never heard of it. The other guys filled me in saying that it was featured in a documentary on the Trans America Bicycle Trail Race documentary that was released recently(I never heard of it). The shop was neat and the owner was very enthusiastic about meeting us and let us sign his wall of cyclists.

We took off and rode a nice uneventful ride to the little town of Buhler, Kansas. Buhler had just finished a $20 Million renovation to its park featuring some beautiful new baseball fields, tennis courts, and a fitness center to complement its pool. They had just opened everything up yesterday and today were running a baseball tournament with local teams and some from down in Wichita.