i woke up this morning to the god-awful ringing of radar by iPhone, perhaps the most iconic case of bedhead i’ve showcased this trip, and the taunting sight of my notes app still open on my phone’s screen with yesterday’s half-written blog post trailing off into sleepy delirium. needless to say, attempting to write a blog whilst horizontal and exhausted (as i’m ironically doing again at this moment) is rarely a successful mission. last night i failed, and for that i sincerely apologize, but i think i can bring you all up to speed and hopefully recount with some degree of entertainment value the journey that has been the last 48 hours and the colorado-kansas transition.
shouldn’t have sang my rain song…
yesterday was intended to be a 120 mile day - our longest day by far since departure from campus five weeks ago. it was, in actuality, not a 120 mile day. here is a short summary as to why:
bike on road. bike on gravel. big beetles on road. avoid beetles. gas station. biking. gas station. is that a rain cloud? eh, more biking. definitely a rain cloud. corn. lightning. deliberation. walmart detour.
spokes x walmart… sponsor us?
and so we headed to walmart, where we ended up staying for several hours while the storm blew over, or rather, mercilessly pelted, over. spokes played cards, bought socks and snacks, and i even managed to find a souvenir colorado t-shirt that i had been searching for since denver. all in all, a fruitful break, but one that had to come to an end if we were going to have any chance of making it to lamar, CO for the night.
vincent nearly reaching lift off
setting off on our final leg of the day, the sky was threatening even more rain and the headwind was aggressively headwinding (or cross-winding, or some evil combination of the two). determined to at least surpass 90 miles, we pressed on. vincent and i passed the time fairly quickly, engaging in riveting conversation about the lightning-resistance of grazing cows and whether we could out-bike a horse (google is telling me that horses are in fact much faster than one might expect).
ody and joel rescued the bikers from nightfall at our third loaf & jug gas station of the day. we hurried to church/ our home for the night and by 10pm were eating delicious chili courtesy of katherine, discussing an elusive book that timothy was gifted, and partaking in some much-needed sink showers/ bird baths/ whatever you want to call whatever we did to mitigate the sunscreen + icy hot + bike grease griminess, general odor, and cham discomfort risk. the church we stayed at had approximately seven bathroom sinks - luckily parth spared this location’s plumbing their historically demonstrated wrath.
fast forward to today - another day that would have/ could have been exactly 100 miles had we pushed on past dark, which, given various circumstances, was ill-advised. an agonizingly flat day, a long day, a windy day, preceded by another flat, long, and windy day - we were all pretty beat and very much in need of showers. i think it’s easy to forget that none of us were touring cyclists before this trip - we’ve gotten so used to the crazy mileage that it’s frustrating to cut days short, but for the longevity of our health, both emotional and physical, it’s sometimes necessary.
today we encountered some more gravel (and sand?), a few territorial farm dogs who we very quickly circumvented (no repeats of the MIT spokes incident…time to invest in an air horn…), and a cute diner with delicious frozen watermelon lemonade. we also crossed state lines and time zones. swag. and i got my first flat. not so swag. only time will tell what else kansas holds beyond corn, giant beetles, and miles upon miles of glistening roads. hopefully not too much rain (knock on wood).
eventually we’ll complete our century! till then we’ll try our best.
garden city, KS baby!
aja