Racing to Ness city

After a light breakfast and a quick stop at a fantastic coffee shop we got on the road. There were very limited options for resupply today so everyone was carrying a little extra weight but it didn't matter. We had a tailwind and the terrain was the easiest yet. Shortly after we left town I hit the 2000 mile mark.

There were two points of interest on today's route, the Santa Fe trail historical center and Fort Larned. Unfortunate the historical center was closed but the fort was open. It is the best preserved fort in the west. Except for some names carved into the stone walls it was in really good shape. We had free run of the place and had our own tour guide.

After wasting a couple hours there we got back on the road. Thanks to the ease of the road we started cruising along at 15mph. At 15mph Alex and I were soon left in the dust. We could see Bobby about 200 yards in front of us and the other two about a half mile away. Alex says to me let's go catch up to Bobby. I agree and we are now doing 18mph and gaining on Bobby until we get about 10 yards away. At this point Bobby starts going faster so we can't catch him. I eventually caught him after hitting 22mph but Alex never did. Bobby and I were now within range of Jim and Keith so we decided to go catch them and start a game of tag. Catching those two were much easier as we didn't have to push too hard before tagging Jim. At this point I was tired so I just settled in drafting off Jim and Keith while Bobby kept going.

A few minutes later Keith says lets catch up to Bobby who is now about 40 yards ahead of us. He starts pushing hard to catch up with Jim and I drafting behind. Bobby sees us coming and stays just far enough ahead of Keith so he can't catch up. When Keith finally gives up I go. I'm pedalling harder than I have all trip and slowly gaining on Bobby. Right when my legs are burning so much that I'm about to give up I catch him. I didn't have a chance to see how fast I was going. But now I was resting at 20.

We kept this resting pace up for another 10 minutes before Jim started gaining on us. So off to the races again. Another 10 minutes later Jim started fading so we slowed down and let him catch up. At this point we were basically at town. 

Kansas has marshlands?

After watching a gorgeous sunrise over the baseball diamonds we got moving early. Today is yet another "big" day of 80ish miles. Somehow these "big" days in Kansas just don't feel all that big. Maybe its the company, maybe its the tailwind, but I suspect its how relatively flat the terrain is. We rolled out of the flint hills into more hills and prairies. Of course all these hills and prairies were covered in fields of wheat to the horizon.

What was really nice was right around the middle of the day we entered a national wildlife refuge which was actually a marshland. This is supposedly one of the best places to see migratory birds in the early spring as they use this area as a stopping point on their migration route. The open fields and marshlands provided the birds refuge and the trees provided us the same. I've taken to taking pictures of the trees as they have started to become sparse. Outside of peoples houses there are little to no trees to be found. Supposedly it is going to get even worse, or better?, the further west we travel.

On our way to the next town we caught up to the Belgian. I told him I'd catch him ah well I'm not the one with only one pair of bike shorts,  (actually I only have one pair as I use underwear half the time). We finally made it to the little town of Larned, Kansas which had another city park with a pool and pavilion we could use.

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.

A century

100 miles today. I had a semblance of a tailwind and a town 99 miles away to camp at so I went for it. I added 3 miles at the start by grabbing donuts from a 50 year old shop. The wind was blowing from the south with a slight westward direction added in. But I had over 25 miles heading north so it counts. Honestly as long as it isn't blowing against me it counts. Not much to say since it was a long grinding day
Perfect temperatures for being on my bike for 8 hours. At the end of the day I finally caught up with Keith, Jim, and Bobby. It was nice having company again. I'll probably be with these guys the rest of Kansas since there are limited options unless you start doing 100 mile days.

Mistakes were made

Mistakes were made today. Actually it started yesterday when I got a message from Alex the Belgian asking if I was past the town of Pittsburg. Since that was where I was I let him know. It seems he left a pair of really expensive bike shorts at a motel in town and he wanted me to grab them and mail them to him. No big deal but I told him I'd get them to him faster than the post office. Since he didn't believe me I picked them up and mailed them ahead to Colorado for him.

Mistake 2 was my fault for believing the weather man on tv rather than my own eyes. My eyes were telling me there was a bad storm on the horizon right on my path. The weather man said it was only a light shower. After getting 6 miles out if town and being 8 miles from anywhere I got enough signal to confirm that the light shower was a dark red storm which was heading my way. However it was localized enough that of I just rode 5 miles north I'd be out of the worst and into light showers.  Since Kansas is laid out in a grid it was very easy to just jump on the next road north. The next gravel road north. The next big loose gravel road north. I made it about 4 miles before the storm caught me. Luckily I had made it outside the lighting and hail so it wasn't that bad. However it turned my nice gravel road into a muddy gravel road.

At this point I had reached the next paved road heading west which was a US highway and Kansas highway combo. Mistake bidder number 3. My nice big shoulder lasted for about a quarter mile.  At which point the US highway went south and so did my shoulder. Unfortunately my traffic flying past me at 65+ mph kept heading west. So I my choices were follow the US highway south back to route for 5 miles then head 5 miles back north shortly there after, keep following this busy highway, or take a gravel road. Gravel road it is. Thankfully this one was well used or groomed cause it was nice riding. I got to the town and went straight to the cheap motel. After all that gravel I was sore and the storms were still coming.

23 miles of Hills and Hello Kansas

So at the hostel last night I was told by the host and like 4 notes around the building that there was only 23 miles of hills left. After a month of constant climbing and descending with over 95582 ft of up and 94729 ft of down I am done with hills and for the next 600 miles have a total of 5000 ft of up and 4700 ft of down. Its going to be gloriously flat. I'll get bored of it in no time I'm sure but at the end of all that beautiful flat land is going to be the rocky mountains. Not counting the ease of riding on flats I think what I'm really looking forward to not having to freak out every time a car passes me on a blind hill. Every time I'm just waiting for the knee jerk reaction of them swerving out of an oncoming car from the blind hill into me or actually hitting a car on the blind hills. It hasn't happened yet but there have been several close calls.

Anyway turns out flats are easy. Very easy. I was rolling along at 16 mph most of the day. Turns out riding at 16mph on a loaded touring bike on flat ground is actually very tiring. Especially when you run into a head wind. I'm going to have to pace myself in the future but its just so nice and easy.

Up and Down and Up

So I think today's hills were the worst of the entire trip. The big steep hills of virginia were just that Big and Steep.  You could just set up granny gear then grind them out until the body said take a rest. Do this a couple times and you're done. The hills in Kentucky were shorter were still long enough that shifting gears and grinding them out worked. Illinois and Missouris hills until today were more like one of those terrible old wooden roller coasters; you grind slowly to the top then a fast bumpy ride down that takes you almost all the way up the next hill.


The first half of today's ride was actually quite nice. I could have easily made it last night had I pushed on. The second half of the ride had the hills.Today's hills were not like any of the previous ones. First off they were Steep. Steep enough to require max granny gear for basically all of them. Secondly they were short. So short that by the time you started to get in a climbing groove you were done. Thirdly they were space out far enough that any momentum you got from grinding up the previous hill was gone by the time you reached the next. Oh and throw in a headwind which they hills were to short to block except for a very short period of the climb making it practically impossible to get in a groove. Rinse and repeat for 25 miles and that was the second half of my day.

Luckily I reached the small town of Ash Grove and decided to take a break and wait for the wind to die down before moving on. They had a really nice community park with a pool and a biker hostel to boot. Needless to say I didn't ride on.

Trees down and many miles

So yesterday's storm knocked a few trees down and had debris all over the road. The road itself wasn't all that bad but the shoulder was covered in bits of trees. Not that big a deal but they would cover up the actual dangerous items like broken glass, rusty nails, and metal shards that I normally would see on the shoulder. Unfortunately the picture I took of the debris didnt come out since I was playing with my camera last night and had the settings all messed up. I eventually figured out what  the issue was but by then most of the debris had blown away.

Not much to say about today's ride other than I put some tracks down. Seriously made some miles. All told I did 86 miles with a buncha hills mixed in. I was feeling good enough at the end of the day that I was contemplating going for my first century but the guys ahead said the next section has some nasty hills. Additionally the town I was in supposidly would let you camp in the city park or fair grounds. This was contrary to every sign I saw in the parks and I couldn't get a hold of anyone from the city or police to confirm. Whatever, I was tired and just setup camp inside a park pavilion and figured if they wanted to kick me out they would.

Heat + humidity = tornados

I want to do a big day today to try catch up with the other guys. I got on the road by 6 partly due to trying to make miles but partly because the store in town I was planning on buying breakfast from doesn't open for another hour and a half. Time to find out if I can bike 20 miles on a granola bar(not a problem).

The scenery today was better than yesterday. I don't know how they do it but the rivers here are some of the clearest I've ever seen. They are on par with the glacier melt rivers. One river even had a blueish tint to it. I rode past the Ozark trail. Missouri's long distance hiking trail. It's defiantly being added to my list but the timing will require some research. If the humidity is like today with summer time heat I'd defiantly die trying to hike that.

Thanks to the oppressive humidity and a bit of heat I was moving slowly. I made it to the town of Summerville right before 1pm. That gave me just enough time to goto the local library and get the Wi-Fi password so I could check the weather. My 4g data has been amazing but since I entered the Ozarks I've only had 1g. Thanks to that I've not been able to keep up on the weather. Today was supposed to have bad thunderstorms but not until 3pm. So I wanted to get a feel for the storms and see if I could make the 22 miles to the next town.

I wouldn't have made it. Maybe if I was fresh and had ridden straight there I might have. But after the library stop and a refill at the local gas station there was no way. I debated back and forth over staying vs going before getting an update from my dad saying the storm which looked like it was going north of me expanded and was heading straight for me.

I managed to get a single bedroom cabin from the local youth center right as it started. Boy did it ever start. There were 70+ mph winds, lightning everywhere, and buckets of rain. Unlike the previous storms on this trip it just kept coming. 3 times the storms came through crazier than the previous. The one at 1130 pm had a thunder so loud it shook my cabin enough to wake me up. Good times. I spent most of the night sitting on the porch or just inside watching the mayhem. No tornados where I was but there was one just 20 miles north of the town I was heading for.

Shots done!

I lucked out as a couple doing a slack pack came to the hostel last night and offered me a ride up to the hospital outpatient center which saved me an extra 25 miles of riding! Thanks to them I can get to my targeted location of Ellington which has a hostel and I don't have to try find a campsite on memorial day weekend.

The ride today was beautiful but challenging. I'm back in the mountains again, the Ozarks. That means great scenery and big hills. Not really that big but still steep enough for me to walk up a few. I'm unsure of the hills are actually that steep or of hanging out with walkers and the relatively flat terrain of the last week has ruined my determination and judgement of what's rideable and what's too steep. I know I rode up steeper hills in Virginia but since these ones are only like 100 or 200 ft high going 2.5 mph walking vs 3.5 mph riding just doesn't seem worth it to me.

Thanks to the mountains, rivers, and late start it took me most of the day to get to Ellington. I am not sure if the road I'm on is actually this busy or if it's just because of the holiday. Either way it seems like every 5 minutes or so another truck towing a couple atvs came flying by me at 70 mph with no room to spare. Once I got past the turns to the parks the traffic died down but I really don't like riding on 60 mph roads with no shoulder.

I learned a new term today Shut-In(see picture). There was a state park with a Shut-In that is apparently extremely popular around here. I guess the pools and cascades would be excellent on a hot summer day. With how clear the rivers are I was very tempted too go for a dip but the  wounds on my legs kept me out.

Zero for bike fixes

So my bike was making odd noises after the coal truck incident. Whenever my bike was tilted to the right it'd make a clicking sound. It didn't matter if I was coasting or pedalling. I couldn't figure it out so I had to take it to the shop. The shop was closed on Wednesdays so I had to wait until today. It was due for a tune up anyway. Turns out some of the rear wheel spokes were loose. I hadn't checked that hurray for experts. I also made arrangements to get my last shot without going to an ER tomorrow so zero it is.

Hello Missouri

So right when I rode into Chester last night I ran into some other cyclists. Jim and Keith who I had lost after going up to Owensboro for a rabies shot. There was another cyclist with them, Bobby. They had kinda escorted me into town last night since 4 cyclists were enough to give the coal trucks a pause, but only a pause.

Anyway this morning we got up and moving early because we had heard the bridge across the Mississippi was worse than highway 3. I think if there weren't 4 of us it probably would have. But Keith was in the back with his gopro on recording everything and we didn't share the road so there was no issues.

The ride today was enjoyable. Having company, with mostly flat terrain, and even a tailwind! I even gotta experience an NP junction in person(engineering humor). Course all good things must come to an end. But not today. When we got to the town of Farmington what awaited us is the best hostel on the ride and possibly anywhere I've stayed. It was built in any old jail that had been remodeled the upstairs by the city into a 14 bunk hostel. Really well done, clean, comfortable, and convenient to everything in town. The people in town were extremely nice and welcoming. If there was a vote for best town on trail this would be mine.