Category: DC to California 2010

After a quick breakfast I was once again on the road at about 10. Last night’s rain was long gone, leaving behind only some cloud cover to give some respite from the sun. It was another hot day, hovering around 90 degrees, but I am getting accustomed to this heat. Perhaps it is because I am in better shape but I am not sweating as much as I used to, especially in these temperatures.

I had a nice 10 foot shoulder for about 20 miles before it returned to the 3 feet I’m used to. I am taking route 24 across the entire state and traffic is pretty light so between the minimally adequate shoulder and light traffic volume it’s not too bad of a ride.

One phenomenon I’ve been trying to figure out is regarding the wind from passing vehicles. Sometimes a truck comes from the opposite direction and after passing me, I get a light headwind. Other times, however, I am struck by a wall of wind that can instantly slow me down or knock me one way or the other. I had been trying to come up with a theory to explain these discrepancies of trucks of the same size traveling at the same speed causing different results and I think I have an answer.

When a truck passes and I get a light breeze from it, that’s like a ship’s wake – waves caused by the displacement of water. When this wake of air encounters a cross wind, it can push and compress the wake in my direction. For the past couple days I’ve had on and off cross winds from the south and since I’m going west, that means the waves of air are being blown right into me, causing the forceful wind with each passing truck. Now I know when I need to be prepared to steady my bike from the wind and when I can ignore it. The more you know.

Towns seem to be about 30 or 35 miles apart here so I had the choice of going 65 or 95 miles, and I opted for the shorter day. If I can do one 90-100 mile day, the rest can be 60 mile days and I can be in Denver on Sunday. Maybe I’ll try and knock that out tomorrow.

Today’s mileage: 70 miles.
Total: 2022 miles.

I was up and ready to go at 9 which is pretty decent for me, but found that I was almost out of my chamois cream so I would have to hit up a bike shop for more. As it turns out, there won’t be another bike shop until Denver and the ones in Manhattan didn’t open until 10 so I had an hour to kill.

For the past couple days my bike had been pretty loud, all the dust and mud from the Katy trail was in the drivetrain. So I took it upon myself to clean and lubricate the chain and gears. The last time I had done this personally, I didn’t do a very good job, but this time the drivetrain was silent and felt butter smooth so I guess I did it right.

I stopped in an outdoors store / bike shop in town, The Pathfinder, and bought my cream. The owner of the shop was really nice and gave me a map of recommended cycling routes through Kansas as well as a souvenir t-shirt from the shop.

On the road, the first 40 miles went by very easily. Stopped for a quick lunch and was back to pedaling. It would be 52 miles to the next town, and rain storms were closing in.

The hills are flattening out now and I don’t have to shift down much when going uphill, and my average speed is hovering about 13 miles per hour which is decent. I press onwards to the town of Beloit as I keep a wary eye on the storms to the north. Passing by three separate rain storms, they all stay just barely north of me and so I make it to my destination without getting wet.

I fall asleep at 9 but am soon awoken by a violent thunderstorm with lightning flashes every few seconds. The motel’s power is knocked out for maybe half an hour but gets restored and I finally get to sleep after the storm subsides.

Today’s mileage: 92 miles.
Total: 1952 miles.

Not a very exciting day. Got on the road at 10, the hills continued and my progress was pretty slow.

I stopped at what I thought was a restaurant for lunch but it turned out to just be fast food. Somehow it was already mid-afternoon so I stopped for the day after 56 miles in the college town of Manhattan, KS since the next place to stop would be another 40 miles.

So far my new Brooks saddle isn’t very comfortable, but that’s what I expected – you have to break them in like Birkenstocks.

Today’s mileage: 55 miles
Total: 1860 miles

Another late start. Got on the road at 11 and headed out of town. The rolling hills continued and after a little bit I made it to the town of Lawrence. There were tons of people downtown, all wearing blue shirts, I think it was parents weekend for the local college.

The town was pretty cultural and I found a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. Halfway through my meal I got a call from the housekeeping at the motel I had stayed at last night saying I had left my wallet in my room. Shit. So I had no way to pay for my meal. Instead of setting myself back 3 hours I decided to call a cab company and convinced them to give me a ride without paying up front. I got my wallet, tipped the housekeeping, got a ride back to Lawrence, and paid my bill at the Vietnamese restaurant.

On my way out of town I decided to pop in a bike shop to see if they had a Brooks saddle. I missed the place and on my way around the block ran into another bike shop that wasn’t on the map. Turns out they had the saddle.
After buying and installing it, I decided to fill up my tires and promptly broke a valve doing that. Had to replace the tube which was a pain in the butt, and finally made it out of town after stopping for a smoothie.

I decided to stay in Topeka for the night, and the 30 mile ride felt pretty long, but I made it there a bit after dark.

Today’s mileage: 49 miles
Total: 1805 miles

Not many pictures from today, so I took some of recent bike upgrades. New saddle and I picked up some carabiners to attach my extra water bottles to the rear strap. Previously I would have to remove the strap to get to the water.

This morning I got a ride from Marcus, my host for last night, a few miles north to get me to the highway I was taking. There was a fair amount of traffic but I had a 10 foot shoulder so it wasn’t too bad to ride on.

I stopped in the outskirts of Kansas City to look for a Brooks saddle, but the two shops I visited and six I called did not carry them. I’ll check some more shops tomorrow then just have one delivered to Denver if I continue to have no luck.

Connecting to another highway, I made way across to the south of the city. Unfortunately there was road construction which turned it into a 2 lane highway with no shoulder. Even worse, there was a tall curb so I couldn’t pull over to let trucks pass. Lots of very close trucks. Eventually the highway turned into a wide suburban sprawl with lots of traffic and I passed into Kansas.

Whoever said Kansas was flat was wrong. Rolling hills continued throughout the day, and I ran into a few very steep 200ish foot climbs towards the end of the day. I had wanted to go 90some miles to a campground but I called it a day at a motel in the town of De Soto, Kansas.

Today’s mileage: 82 miles.
Total: 1756 miles