Day 37: 109 Miles

Newton, KS to Larned, KS

Today was a long one. I got up early enough to ensure I’d be done at a reasonable time. The winds picked up a little bit compared to yesterday and were blowing out of the south. I headed directly west for the entire day and had the wind somewhere between my 9 o’clock and 11 o’clock at all times. It wasn’t quite a head wind, but it was enough to slow me down.

I started at 8:15 AM and pedaled for 48 miles to the town of Nickerson. This was the only place to stop the entire day. I got there around lunch time and headed into the Sunshine Cafe. I had planned to eat only what I was carrying with me, but I couldn’t pass up a real meal. This cafe was another stop that has a sign in book for cyclists. I’ve seen the same names a day ahead of me in all of the cyclists books for the last 2 weeks. I was surprised to see that Joe from Staten Island had signed the book earlier this morning. This means I’ve made up a day on him and will hopefully run into him in the next town. It is kind of weird that I know he is ahead of me because he has no idea I’ve been tracking him down for 2 weeks.

After lunch I had to make a choice. I could go another 10 miles and call it a day or push on to Larned. There was no place in between these two stops, so it was either going to be a short day or a really long day. The winds are supposed to pick up significantly tomorrow and the temperature is supposed to get to the high 90s. With this knowledge, I decided it would be better to push on today while the wind and temperatures were good. So instead of 10 more miles I had 60 more miles after lunch. Normally 60 miles on flat roads wouldn’t be too bad, but the road wasn’t as flat as it looked and the winds made it hard. The elevation chart below is from today’s ride. It wasn’t a huge gain in elevation but it was slightly up hill the entire way. This means there were no downhills to coast and take a rest. It was constant pedaling for what turned out to be over 9 hours on the bike.

I did meet a few cyclists traveling east today which was nice. I first ran into a couple traveling from Missoula. They were very nice and gave me some good information about a place to camp tomorrow night. The next guy I met was from Belgium. We crossed paths towards the end of the day for me, so I knew he had a few hours before he reached a real town. I mentioned to him that there was a house a mile down the road where the owner had offered me use of her hose if I wanted to cool off and fill up my bottles. He interpreted hose as house and then told me he was tired and was going to stay there. I hope he was not too upset when there was nowhere to stay, or hopefully the homeowner was nice enough to take him in. The last guy I met was a Brit. We crossed paths with 15 miles to go in my day. He had already cycled 116 miles and was heading for Newton, where I started the day. That would mean he was aiming to hit 210 miles today. Since I was almost done I offered him any of the food or water that I had on me. He had 45 miles to get to the next gas station, but declined to take anything from me. I hope he makes it to Newton and has a nice rest day tomorrow.

I got to Larned around 7:15 PM and found a motel. By that point I was pretty hungry so I walked to the Sonic nearby and got over 2,000 calories of food. The one good thing with fast food is that I can replenish a ton of calories without having to eat all that much. It’s horrible for the general population, but after 109 miles on the bike, I needed as many calories as I could stomach. After finishing my food, I took a much needed shower and put the NBA finals on. Tomorrow is going to be a much shorter day and I’ll be heading north for a bit which means I should have a tailwind. I’m hoping the day goes by quickly so I can relax by the town pool when I get to Ness City tomorrow.