In July, Dave and I found adventure on our bicycles riding across Colorado and Kansas. We started in Trinidad, Colorado and rode east along US-160 to Winfield, Kansas, then north through the Flint Hills, and back west again to Hoisington, Kansas, where our vacation time ran out. We enjoyed 7 days of wonderful riding, wrapped around a truly enjoyable rest day in the heart of the Flint Hills. The individual posts for each day of our ride can be found at these links:
Day 1 – Trinidad to Springfield (Colorado) – Runnin’ With The Big Dog and Pritchett, Colorado
Day 2 – Springfield, CO to Plains, KS – Pace-line Harmony and a Pool of Bonk in Plains, Kansas
Day 3 – Plains, KS to Coldwater, KS – Comanche Rollers and 109 Degrees
Day 4 – Coldwater, KS to Wellington, KS – The Medicine Hills
Day 5 – Wellington, KS to Cottonwood Falls, KS – Through the Fog and Into The Flint Hills
Day 6 – Pie and Cottonwood Falls
Day 7 – Cottonwood Falls, KS to Lindsborg, KS
Day 8 – Lindsborg, KS to Hoisington, KS
Our approach to the ride was one of ultra-minimalism, each of us carrying only about 20# total, plus water. While we surpassed our “threshold†mileage goal, the winds didn’t allow us to threaten our more aggressive mileage goals. We discovered quite a few unexpected things along the way, some perhaps a bit more pleasant than others. For example:
- Handlebar bags are more wind drag than you think they will be, and make the bike a lot less stable. But they’re easy to send home once you discover this.
- Saddle sores can happen for lots of reasons, and chamois cream becomes a wonderful thing when they do happen.
- Wind is a big deal. Big wind is a really really big deal.
- Head winds or quartering head winds make really bad words form in your mind, and most of them just spill right out of your mouth since nobody could possibly hear them anyway.
- The wind doesn’t really seem to pay any attention to what spills out of your mouth – it just keeps blowin’.
- Tailwinds turn all of life into a wonderful experience. It’s simply impossible to have an unkind or unhappy thought while pedaling with a stiff breeze at your back.
- People are way more nice than you ever imagine them to be – even when you imagine them to be nice, they sometimes surprise you with even more kindness.
- Few things bring as much joy to your heart as watching a pair of Scissortail Flycatchers dancing between the wires and the grass.
- You can almost always find chicken fried steak and eggs for breakfast at diners in Kansas.
- If you “hit the wall†in runner’s lingo, or “bonk†in cycling lingo, your day is over – wherever you are at that point, and you discover yet a new version of feeling really rotten.
- You can discern a lot about local habitat by watching the smashed stuff roll by under your tires.
- Tailwinds and nice people are a wonderful layer to leave over the top of anything unpleasant that you might find along the road.
In terms of overall results, our “threshold goal†of 600 miles assumed no help from the wind, and we got very little such help in the end. With neutral winds, reasonable weather, and no physical ailments, we hoped we might hit 800 miles. With excellent tailwinds, we thought we might even be able to push toward 1000 miles. In the end, we rode 718 miles of a 770 mile route. (There was one day that we got a ride in a truck past what we feared would be heavily trafficked roads – we had enjoyed the route so much that we didn’t want to create a bad taste with nasty urban highway traffic.)
We saw deer, antelope, fox, a few bajillion head of cattle, some really nice dogs and cats, Scissortail Flycatchers (along with eastern and western Kingbirds), Grasshopper Sparrows, Red Headed Woodpeckers, and lots of other birds too common to mention. We saw Red-tailed and Broad Winged Hawks – including a nice rodeo act with a Red-Winged Blackbird riding a Broad-Winged like a bronc. We saw lots of Marsh Hawks and more Peregrine Falcons than I would have expected.
Sure we endured some heat and cussed at some wind. I felt open saddle sores on the parts of me that were most intimate with my saddle for a couple weeks after the ride ended. But those were the tiny little inconveniences of a ride that was – overall and all-in-all – one of the most pleasant rides I’ve ever done.
I’ve been chronicaling the ride in a number of epic blog posts. While they’re not complete yet, they’re getting close. Below are the links to the blog posts as I get them done. My objective is to consolidate and edit these posts into a book that I’ll publish, so what you have in these posts is the raw material from which a book will eventually emerge.
Thanks for reading!
Day 1 – Trinidad to Springfield (Colorado) – Runnin’ With The Big Dog and Pritchett, Colorado
Day 2 – Springfield, CO to Plains, KS – Pace-line Harmony and a Pool of Bonk in Plains, Kansas
Day 3 – Plains, KS to Coldwater, KS – Comanche Rollers and 109 Degrees
Day 4 – Coldwater, KS to Wellington, KS – The Medicine Hills
Day 5 – Wellington, KS to Cottonwood Falls, KS – Through the Fog and Into The Flint Hills
Day 6 – Pie and Cottonwood Falls
Day 7 – Cottonwood Falls, KS to Lindsborg, KS
Day 8 – Lindsborg, KS to Hoisington, KS
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Thanks for sharing. This is a dream of mine. Not possible to live it yet.
Glad you enjoy this John – I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you get to do something like this soon!