Some days are diamonds, some days are stones. These were gems.

Day 11: Dodge City to Great Bend, Kansas, 86 miles
Day 12: Great Bend to Abilene, Kansas, 105 miles

These were two relatively easy days.

Day 11 (Thursday) was great with tail winds pushing them along, except for about 10 miles early on. That headwind was the opposite from what the weather forecast said. Nonetheless, the rest of the day was great with the guys were really enjoying the ride. There was about a 1000' feet of elevation loss during the day, and temperature were comfortable.

On Day 12 (Friday), we took an alternate route from that on the ABB cue sheet. We looked at the forecast winds, and thought the last 70 of the 129 miles planned would be right into the teeth of a headwind. There appeared to be an alternate route that was actually shorter, but with unknown road smoothness, shoulders and traffic amount. But, it appeared that the alternate route would avoid the headwinds, taking the winds at the 9:00 or 10:00 position. So, the decision was to go for it.

It turned out that the roads were smooth, the shoulders 41 miles on Hwy. 56 and 156 wide, and traffic tolerable. Then they turned east in Hwy 140 and the first 15 miles were a gorgeous scenic route with rolling hills,with smooth pavement and almost no traffic, then flattened out as they neared Salina. The route included about 5-6 miles of urban traffic. A sales person in a bike shop recommended a different route to Abilene along Country Club Drive, which was also a delightful ride, then north on Hwy. 15 to the motel.


The weather forecast was wrong again, in that thankfully the winds were not a factor whatsoever. The guys again had a delightful time.

Again there was about a 1000' drop in elevation and comfortable temperatures.

Tomorrow looks like another pretty easy day, with 109 miles, not much elevation change and favorable winds. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow will be the last day Vern will be with us, so our group will be getting smaller.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cycling from Los Angeles to Boston - In the Beginning

Image
"Hey, Rick. This is Phil Anderson, your roommate on the 2016 Fast America South ride across the country from LA to Savannah, Georgia. Are you up for an adventure?" That's how it all started for me in December, 2017. Phil was planning a ride from Costa Mesa (south of Los Angeles - but who ever heard of Costa Mesa?) to Boston, following the America by Bicycle route called "Fast America North", about 3400 miles. Three other elite riders will ride with him all or part of the way, and they need someone to drive a support vehicle while they ride up to 120-150 miles per day. I could ride some by parking the vehicle ahead, riding back to meet them and then riding back to the vehicle. Would I be interested?. Photo courtesy of America by Bicycle Well, at the time I did not have anything else planned, so it sounded intriguing. Then I thought that I could combine this with hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon, one of the many adventures on my bucket list. I check
Read more

A "Rest Day" it wasn't

Image
Day 16: Kirksville, Missouri to Quincy, Illinois, 97 miles, with winds and hills The idea was that after the hard 145 mile day yesterday, the 97 mile day would feel like a rest. It was not. The day started as usual, early and cool. And, with a lot of up and down on a narrow country road without shoulders. Thank goodness there was little traffic. Interestingly, there were seven one lane bridges along the way, which gives you an idea how lightly traveled it was. That was the story for all but the last 25 miles. The road was not very smooth, but not too bad. The bad part was that here they do not make any cuts in the hills to reduce the grade, they just pave over them, and some of the grades were STEEP. And, the winds started in their faces and increased throughout the day. This photo shows wind speeds over 20 miles an hour, and it was never any help all day. We were planning on crossing the Mississippi River by way of a ferry, as listed on the 2007 cue sheet. Well, I went
Read more