Day 26 – Larned to Garden City – Still in Kansas

Kansas is great when you have a tailwind. When you have a headwind, it’s a different story.

The today was very simple. Here’s a shot of JP’s Garmin giving him directions from the hotel as we left.

For those that haven’t read a Garmin 800 before, that first line tells you when the next turn is. Our route today was 100 miles long… the first turn was 99 miles in to the route. So yeah, we’re in Kansas.

J “I’m now a morning person” P got the jump on me again today and was out of the hotel about 6 minutes before me. Sunrise was pretty late today (6:25ish) and we had calm winds at the start. By the time I caught him, JP was clearly feeling the impact of his quality rides from the last few days. He decided to SAG up after the first hour to try to get his legs back under him for our next riding day on Saturday. I think it’s a fantastic idea especially when next week we’ll be riding in to the teeth of the Rockies.

About the time JP jumped in Art’s car, the wind started to pick up. But rather than having a tail wind from the East like the weatherman said, it was a headwind. A series of storms had just passed to our east and I think it was the tailing wind behind that storm.

Then the winds rotated around from the north for a bit… cross wind. Not great but not bad.

Then… magic. A solid tail wind. For about an hour I had a 10-12 mph tailwind. In the flats of Kansas, that kind of wind will make you feel like you’re riding in le Tour. I was cruising at 20mph without even trying. I thought I had the day made… not quite.

A word on the route. We rode Kansas Route 156 all day today. It’s a 2 lane road, no shoulder, and 65 mph speed limit. Oh, and some heavy truck traffic. Being seen is important, so I wore a bright red jersey, had a super bright red flashing tail light, and I even used a flashing white light on the front. There’s a lot of passing that occurs on 156 and the flashing front light keeps me from getting plowed in to by oncoming traffic.

I talked to some folks at the local bike store in Garden City this afternoon about 156 and they basically laughed and said “yeah, we don’t ride that road”. I picked a real winner of a route it seems.

I mentioned yesterday that Kansas is a big ramp up to the Rockies. Well, sometimes the ramp is steeper than other times. For instance, in the distance you can see here what appears to be a little rise at the end of a long straight.

When you get up to it, it’s not that little of a rise and it’s steeper than it let on. On this particular “rise” I nearly had to get in to my bailout 30 tooth ring in the back. Crazy. There were a number of these between mile 40 and 60 that got my attention.

Also around mile 40, the wind completed it’s swing and started hammering out of the southwest. Officially, that was a headwind. Grr… I fought through the wind and the heat until just before noon and called it a day. 72 miles of an emotional (and physical) roller coaster. I was hoping for 100, but right now 70-75 is my sweet spot… which is good because many of our days in the Rockies will be around 70 miles.

A side note on Heidi and the MCC. The MCC sticks out no matter where we go. It’s a BIG Mercedes sprinter van, it’s wrapped in vinyl with our logo and the logos of all our sponsors, it has all kinds of things sticking up off the roof,  and in general it doesn’t look like it belongs on back country roads (tho it performs fantastically on those roads). So when Heidi stops on the side of the road to wait for us, sometimes she draws the attention of locals. Today she pulled up at the Horse Thief Reservoir to wait for me late in the morning.

A gentleman in a red minivan pulled up and rather than going to the reservoir, he pulled up and started asking Heidi about the MCC and the ride. Turns out he’s been doing long distance rides for years and will be riding across Iowa in a few weeks. It was a great conversation, and similar to many others she’s already had. Frankly, she’s probably talked to more locals than I have on this adventure.

Tomorrow is a rest day, thank god. It’s been a busy week and we all need some time to unwind. I’ve already done some heavy lifting maintenance on my bike including putting on a new chain and attempting to true up my discs. Tomorrow we’ll do some sight seeing, restock the MCC, and continue to plan the route/stops for the next few weeks. The landscape is changing rapidly and we’re all stoked to get to the mountains.

Till tomorrow…

Day 25 – Hutchinson to Larned

Kansas is a ramp. At the east, it’s barely 700′ above sea level. On the west, it’s 4,000′ feet where it butts up against Colorado. In between, it’s mostly smooth but slowly goes up as you move west. On rides like today, when the vast majority of our ride was due west, you can actually get a sense of how “ramp like” the state is.

JP has found his calling the last few days. That calling is “get up before dawn and hit the road before any sane person would”. He was out the door again this morning before 6am. I’m not a morning person, especially when Heidi, the kids and I share one hotel room. “Getting to bed early” is largely dictated by Dax’s mood. Last night, not so much. I managed to hit the road by 6:30 though.

Even though the morning was relatively cool, I could still feel the effects of the heat from the last few days. My hands and feet were numb early and I ended up buying some advil at a gas station to try to cut down the tingling. About the time the advil kicked in, I hit a really bumpy stretch of road and the whole thing was moot anyway.

I caught JP somewhere along that bumpy road. Honestly, I had seen him about 40 minutes before I caught him, but like most things in Kansas, just because you can see something doesn’t mean you’re anywhere close to it. JP made great time today and I had to work pretty hard to catch him. About the same time I caught up with him, the MCC caught up with us.

After filling up bottles and grabbing a quick bite, JP and I made good time in the middle of the route. As the wind picked up today it was actually at our back and helped keep our speed up and heart rates down. JP called it a day after 100 km, and I pushed on the last 10 miles to Larned. It turns out that when you leave around 6, even 70 miles is done before noon. Luckily our hotel was ready for us and we all got checked in and showered before lunch.

Larned is in the heart of the Sante Fe Trail. Until today, I didn’t know what the Santa Fe Trail was. It’s a trading route that was used in the pioneer days to haul goods to and from the Southwest. There’s a nice museum here that talks about the history of the Trail, the impact on the local economy, and what eventually became of the Trail.

They had quite a number of different wagons and buggies including this cool covered wagon.

Again, these little towns we stop in have ended up having awesome attractions and history for us to check out.

The stop at the museum was timely because we’re in the processing of changing our route to match the Santa Fe Trail for at least the next few days. The Trans America trail is beautiful, but it can get a little “out of the way” at times. For the next stretch up to Pueblo, it basically doesn’t go through a town with a hotel in it. So rather than SAG our way to/from the route each day, Heidi and I researched some other routes and are tacking a bit south to stay in civilization. I’m not sure what that will mean for traffic, but at this point we’re sort of playing things by ear.

We also spent most of the afternoon fixing the route through the Rockies. The TA route mostly makes sense there, but the locations I chose to stop don’t make sense. So we came up with new stop/start points (and took a different route out of Pueblo) and started to make hotel reservations along that section. Some of the nights are proving to be a challenge. I’m hoping we don’t end up in tents. 😉

Day 24 – El Dorado to Hutchinson

Another hot day in Kansas. Got started early and knocked out as many miles as we good in the face of mechanical and logistical excitement.

JP was on the road before 6 and about 15 minutes before Terran and I hit the road. That’s right, Terran rode part of the route for the first time today. While it was a bit tough to get him out of bed at 5:30, we managed it and got out the door mostly on time.

We had a nice wind from the south (again) but the difference today was much of our route was to the north. About 6 miles in (and a few minutes after sunrise) Terran says “I think there’s something wrong with my rear wheel”. Indeed there was… Terran got the first flat of the trip. 15 minutes later we were on our way chasing JP again.

A few minutes later JP texted and said part of the road around mile 17 was tore up and he was SAG’ing up 2 miles to get past it. Heidi was on her way already so Terran and I figured she’d pick us up and do the same. We got to the road at mile 17 and it was clear it had recently been milled. Parts of it were pretty sketchy, but since Heidi was on her way, we pushed on. About 1/2 from the end of the milling, we hit the active construction zone. We stopped and waited for the MCC to show up rather than have to deal with heavy equipment, flagmen, and loose gravel. By the time she got there, however, the road was completely shut down. It looked like they had plowed the road and were ready to plant a crop on it.

The flagman gave us a detour that we followed the best we good.. but we ended up in basically a pasture. So we turned around and tried another route. 20 minutes later we were back on route, back on our bikes, and once again chasing JP.

By then the wind was seriously picking up.

Terran made it nearly 30 miles before calling it a day. I pushed on trying to catch JP before the temps got too crazy. JP won the battle tho, beating me to Hesston before we both called it a day. It was nearly 100 degrees by 11:30 which seemed like as good a time as any to not get heat stroke and get off the bikes.

We’re spending the night in Hutchinson, home to the Cosmosphere, a space museum. Yep, in Kansas. They’re affiliated with the Smithsonian and have an impressively diverse collection.

They even have the actual Odyssey module from the Apollo 13 mission. That alone made the trip worth it.

JP and Art spent the afternoon 600′ underground in a salt mine tour. It turns out, it’s 68 degrees all the time down there, which was way better than the 105 it turned out to be on the surface.

We had dinner at Raz Smokehouse. It was pretty upscale for a smokehouse, which is kinda cool. It’s nice to have quality smoked meats and not have to sit on folding chairs or wooden benches.

A front is moving through presently and we should have wind out of the east tomorrow. We’ll be up early trying to make hay with the wind. We’ll see how it goes.

Day 23 – Chanute, KS to El Dorado, KS

Mad props to JP today for carrying the torch. I woke up feeling lousy and decided to lose the Battle of Day 23 while I kept my sights on the war of the Cross Country Trip.

Too bad, too. JP had a great morning of riding. Temps were relatively under control and the wind was very light for the first few hours. He was able to put in some solid miles before noon.

It’s important to make something clear. Kansas isn’t flat like a plane in math class. Nope, there are some “hills” here. For example, these hills must be at _least_ 20 feet tall and we can only see like.. I dunno… 5 miles down the road at a time. And I think you can kind of see a curve in the distance.. maybe.

We passed a few more folks going east today (every day we pass a few more). JP met up with this gent from the UK. After some discussion, it seems that he had done nearly zero planning for this trip and was going to be out of cash in a few days. So JP and the guy on the motorcycle threw in a few bucks to help him out. Hopefully he’s able to make it to the Atlantic (and beyond).

I’ll be honest… we’ve passed a number of folks doing solo and small group self supported rides. After riding for the last 3 weeks, I honestly can’t imagine making this trip without support. I have a lot of respect for the folks that can pull off that kind of ride. We’re in an odd situation where we’ve got a hard date to make it to Vegas by – so the dates/location that we’ve put down for the duration of this trip are basically non-negotiable. Don’t feel good? Get SAG’d to the next stop. Heat getting the better of you? Get SAG’d up. Raining cats and dogs? Tough shit. Put on the rain gear and turn the pedals. I think if I were to do this trip again, I’d do it without hard deadlines and take more time to smell the roses.

Smelling the roses was one advantage to feeling lousy today. Heidi, the boys, and I went to the Butler County Museum, otherwise known as the Kansas Oil Museum. $4 for adults, $2 for kids. Seriously, this place must be the best bargain in Kansas. They had amazing displays, lots of equipment and structures that had been relocated to the site, and absolutely no one else there. It was super interesting, even in the 95 degree heat.

They also had ducks. Lots of them. They came up to check us out when we rolled up. The momma was pretty cool with us having a conversation with them… though some of the other birds were a bit more bothered by the MCC and all the yankees that came out of it.

They had a cable drilling rig…

Complete with cable.

And this crazy power generation device. The wheel must have been 20′ across.  I presume when the giant belt broke it was a very exciting time.

They even had a real refinery (just kidding… this is the big refinery just south of El Dorado.)

After some appropriately priced Mexican dinner, we found a car wash big enough to handle the MCC… mostly. The brush attachment wouldn’t reach all the way around so one side of the MCC is definitely cleaner than the other. Here’s an action shot with Heidi. Looks like it came straight out of a late 80’s hair band video.

I’m feeling better, so tomorrow, JP, Terran (!?!) and I will roll out of the hotel at 6am. There’s a heat advisory that will kick in shortly after noon, so we’ll definitely be done riding by then. We’ll see how many miles we can put down before the sun stops us for the day.