Made it to Colorado!

Typing this from a library in Florence, CO - not sure if I'll end up staying here tonight, or pushing on to Canon (pronounced Canyon) City. Depends on weather and a bit of motivation :). The weather is looking a little bit iffy, think it might rain a bit tonight, and so far the ride today has been a bit draining. It's been rather hot, and the road surface has been chipseal, which sucks energy. Earlier today, I was having to pedal even on gradual downhills with a tailwind... Did happen to stop in Wetmore, CO to get some water and got invited to join in with a town potluck lunch! We had a good time chatting with some of the local folks, and had our pictures taken for the local paper! Nice lunch, and a good break from the heat!

Monday, we got an early start and ended up rolling into Pueblo around 3pm, pretty good time for a 90 mile day! The roads were slightly more hilly than previous days, but nothing that would count as "hilly" really. More elevation change than Kansas, but that's about it :). Stopped by a bike shop to pick up some random stuff, and went to get food and beer! Had a big hamburger then went across the street to a neat little brewpub for a few beers before rolling over to the park. Had a really nice sunset, and it was the first night in a while that we could see mountains on the horizon!

Sunday morning, I crossed the border into Colorado! Been looking forward to that state line for quite a while. In the first town west of the CO border, Eads, I caught up with a couple westbound transam bikers and had lunch with them. Two were staying, but the third, Chris, was planning on heading on, so we headed on to a town park in CO. Neat little town of ~100 people, Chris and I met a lady in town who invited us to come over to the monthly Pitch game. Pitch is a card game unlike anything we'd ever seen before, but after a little while (and plenty finger food,) I was starting to get it figured out. Had a fun time chatting with the locals and snacking.

On Saturday, I ended up making it to Tribune, a neat little town a few miles from the border with Colorado. The park had a nice pool facility, and the lifeguard was kind enough to leave it open for me to get a shower and have plenty running water!

Scott City, KS

Hello from Scott City! Just rolling along through Kansas farmland, gradually gaining elevation along the way (I'm at ~3000' now.) Thinking about elevation this morning made me think about what next week will have to offer. If things go as planned, I'll be riding up and over Hoosier Pass (~11,500',) but probably won't be too acclimated yet by the time I get there. Suppose that's what granny gears are for :). The climate has gotten a fair bit drier, which makes me happy. Suppose I haven't mentioned it here, but most of Kansas up until the last couple day has been rather humid. Just checked the weather (main reason I popped into the library) and I've got an easterly wind forecast for the evening rather than the mostly northern wind from this morning - a good thing for me as I won't have to pedal so hard!

Nothing much to report since the last update, the scenery has gotten slightly flatter and has less trees - it's pretty much what I had imagined Kansas would look like now. From here on until Pueblo, CO, the route follows the same road (US 96)nearly due west, so that'll make things super easy! Planning on riding something like 100 miles today to end up near the Colorado border. Hopefully, there will be some other westbound cyclists in town tonight, met a couple on a tandem bike heading east this morning and they mentioned they had crossed paths with a few bikers that were planning on staying in the same place as me tonight, so that's cool. The rockies are getting closer!

You say "Road Closed," I say "Biathlon!"

Quick post (unfortunately without pictures..) from Larned, KS. Ended up taking a zero day in Newton with Liz and Heidi - had an excellent time being lazy and running errands around town!

Did some maths and figured out that I should be able to average just a hair over 50 miles per day from here on out, and take ~10 more zero days, to make it to Oregon with time to get back to Colorado and school. That was a bit of a relief, especially considering that I've only taken 4 zero days so far (counting Newton,) and that I've been averaging over 60 miles per day overall. So, hopefully that means a weekend in Boulder, some time off the saddle in Idaho, and who knows what other adventures! Kansas has gotten really flat over the last 100 miles or so since Newton, and it has been windy! Fortunately, the winds have been out of the South (and I'm heading West,) so although they're kindof frustrating and do make riding tougher, it's nowhere near as bad as a direct headwind.

Scenery has been fairly dull really, not as bleak as I had imagined, but it's just a continuum of farm scenes, occasional oil well heads, dirt crossroads, and more farm scenes. Traffic hasn't been too bad, for much of yesterday, I was able to just take up a whole lane and do my own thing. Today there have been more trucks, so I've been riding the white line most of the morning.

Had a fun little adventure just south of the Quivra Salt Marshes (basically in the middle of nowhere) yesterday. A 10-15 foot chunk of road had been washed out in recent storms. Rather than following the recommended detour that would add 15 or so miles to my trip, I rode around a bunch of barriers and crossed the abyss. Slight exaggeration, maybe. Although the road was definitely collapsed for a section, and definitely had water in the middle, that was likely full of chunks of asphalt and sharp metal (from the culvert pipes that had gotten a little mangled,) it wasn't too hard to cross because someone had placed a nice stout plank between the two piles of rubble on either end. All I did was change into sandals, then shuttle my gear over in a few trips. Took the bags off my bike to make the bike easier to ferry across, and maybe 10 minutes later, everything was back together on the other side of the gap, where I had a nice little lunch break.

Had an excellent stay in Hudson, KS last night with the mayor, Harold, and his wife Sally. Long story, but basically I was anticipating just camping in a very small park (it's a town of ~120) under the stars, but ended up getting treated to a nice dinner of home cooked ribs, green beans, mashed potatoes, homemade bread (baked with flour from the local mill,) and homemade ice cream! Sally unlocked the town's community hall, so I ended up sleeping in a nice air conditioned building with bathrooms and a small kitchen - what a nice surprise! Got out of town around 8:15 this morning, and am about to grab a quick lunch in Larned before heading on West!

Should be crossing the border into Colorado the day after tomorrow if things continue as they have been, really looking forward to being back in Colorado, and especially seeing the Rockies!

Update from Newton, KS

Think I'll end up taking the entire day off riding today, but for now I'm going to proceed as if I'm leaving and try to ge a quick blog update done now :)

So, made it into Newton yesterday afternoon around 4:30 and managed to quickly find Liz, who I had heard about from way back in Virginia. Liz and Heidi rode coast to coast last year and are very generous in offering housing and a local contact for transam riders, I ended up hanging out with them all evening and staying at their house last night. Very nice ladies, fun comparing notes on the route and hanging out! Will likely end up staying again tonight to give me a day to rest, take care of town chores, and do a lot of stuff on the internet, like type this up!

Tuesday started out at a state park on Torono Lake, KS. Got a bit of a late start, but fortunately had a light tailwind all day. It was about a hundred mile ride to get to Newton, but with the tailwind, I was riding between 20 and 25+ when I was on the bike without pushing hard, and managed to arrive fairly early in the evening. Nice riding with some minor hills, and generally good road surfaces except for the last 15 or so miles into Newton. Weather started out kindof iffy, but by the end of the day was hot and sunny.

Monday, after writing that last update, I discovered that I had a flat tire on the bike. Turned out to be a little bit of glass that had worked its way through the 'tread' and kevlar to put a little hole in the innertube. The tire is getting noticably worn down, I figure it's got a fair bit of milage left on it, but I'm thinking I might go ahead and swap it out with the new tire that Continental is sending me to replace the defective one when I pop into Boulder in a week and a half or so. Patched the hole with one of the little no-glue patches I've been carrying. Unsurprisingly, it didn't hold up too well, so a few hours later, I had to swap the badly patched tube out with my last spare tube. Unfortunately, it'll be a while until I get to a bike shop, so I'm hoping to find a store somewhere that happens to sell bike innertubes before then. Should be able to get things patched up and keep going if that plan fails, or worst case I can go off route a bit to get to a bike shop. While fixing the flat, noticed that one of my spokes had wiggled loose, so tightened that back up and continued on west!

Arrived at Toronto Lake and met Tzuo, an eastbound biker who's trying to travel all the way around the world. Had some neat conversation over dinner, then as it got dark a really intense thunderstorm started up a few miles west of us. Fortunately, the rest of the sky was clear, so I ended up sitting out late watching the lightening. Nice night!

At this point, I'm hoping to get to Breckenridge, CO sometime around the Friday after next. From Breck, I'll likely get a ride into Boulder for a day or two off the bike and to take care of random things before next semester gets rolling. I'm really looking forward to getting to the rockies, especially into Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho where I have never been before. Will likely keep up a pace of around 60 miles per day (just slighly less than my overall average so far,) from Breck up until Idaho, where I may end up taking several days off for a little rafting trip. At any rate, I'm still on track to get to the Pacific a little before the middle of August - right in time to get back to school work...

There is a flat part of the country!

This is going to be a short post as I'm borrowing an office computer in the (very) small town of Walnut, Kansas, and the keyboard I'm using has seen better days.

Anyways, the ride has continued to go pretty well, been making good time and having fun. As of today, I have a better answer to the "what do you do when it rains?" question - used to be "Suppose I'll just keep on riding or take a break in town," but now it's "just keep on riding and hammer out a quick blog update." It's been drizzly today, and looks like it'll be about the same for the rest of the day. Slightly windy, but the wind is out of the South mostly, so it's a sidewind that doesn't really slow things down as much as it requires more concentration to stay on the road.

In generaly, Missouri was a hilly state, but the hills were generally short enough that you could use momentum to push halfway up them. The last day in Missouri flattened out considerably, and Kansas is continuing that trend. Probably by tomorrow or the next day it'll be really flat. I'm hoping to push through Kansas pretty fast to make up time for some days off in the Rockies to visit with people and check out the parks.

For the better part of the last week, I've been riding with three other guys; Dan, Brian, and Rob. We split up yesterday when they took a detour to see Springfield, MO, but there's a good chance we'll meet up again soon. They're cool guys, it's been a nice break from an otherwise fairly solitary trip.

The funny town names have continued - First I slept in Houston, MO then last night was Pittsburg, KS. Tonight, I'm probably going to stay in Toronto, KS...

Will get more updates in at some point in the future, along with pictures, but now it's time to zoom.

Quick update from Missouri

Crossed the Mississippi on ground level for the first time ever the other day, on a bridge by bike! Don't have much time to type right now, but just wanted to let people know I'm in Houston, Texas (county,) MO. Staying with some amazing hosts tonight, so might get more online time later, for now we're going to cool off, relax, eat, and relax some more!

Update from Carbondale, IL!

DONE WITH KENTUCKY!
Crossed into the third state of the bike trip yesterday morning, woohooo! Lots of things to write about, but not a lot of time to write, so I'll try and cover most of it:

Today:
Woke up at the state park and rode ~5 miles into Carbondale. Spent the better part of an hour hunting down a waffle (it really shouldn't be that hard!) and eventually located one at the Corner Cafe. Went over to Phoenix Cycles, one of the three bike shops in town, and killed an hour and a half or so waiting around to eventually get to dig through a parts bin in hopes of finding an old rear hub that's the same as mine. Didn't find one, but was finally able to pick up a can of dog spice (pepper spray - not the official name of the product,) a couple new spare tubes, and some grip tape that I'm going to wrap over the exsisting tape to make my handlebars cushier. Went across the street to Carbondale Cycles (think that's the name of the place) and within minutes they had a brand new axle assembly including new cones for my hub - exactly what I needed and with labor included, it should only end up costing $25 or so! Yay for awesome bike shops! Strolled over to the library to do some updating, and here I am! Just got an email from Continental about my tire that's somewhat coming apart (not sure if I mentioned that here - not a big deal really) and it sounds like they'll be glad to replace it, so going to take care of that as well hopefully.

Yesterday:
Woke up in the Baptist Church in Sebree, KY, packed up, and went out for breakfast with Aaron and JJ. Decided to take the shortcut that we had discussed the night before, figured I'd like to get done with this trip in a reasonable amount of time to get set for school, and it's supposed to be flatter than the main route :). Got off to a moderately late start, 9:30 or 10, then rolled across some gentle terrain on to a gas station just shy of the Ohio river for lunch. Had some fun conversation with the guys working there, then headed on west! The bridge over the Ohio was a little bit sketchy, but fortunately there is a long stretch of road visible from the base of the bridge, so I was able to wait until there was a gap in traffic and zoom across pretty quickly to arrive in Illinois! The terrain on the Illinois side is very flat, and the roads have wide margins for the most part, so I ended up just tucking in and riding all the way to a state park just shy of Carbondale, IL. About 98 miles of riding, but considering the shortcut, I covered something like 140 miles of the offical route in one day. Met a motorcycle tourer, Bryant, from Texas and ended up chatting about travel stuff for a good while before bed. Nice day!

During the day, I noticed that there was a ticking sound coming from the back wheel on my bike - pretty sure it's one of the bearings in the rear hub. Long story, but I had checked it out before the trip and noticed it was getting a little worn, but wasn't able to do anything about it because of limited time and it being an old hub. I can't just replace the hub with a new one very easily as it would require converting the bike to a 9 (27) speed - quite a lot of new parts involved in that. Hoping to track down a solution in Carbondale, where there are a few bike shops - first ones in ages!

The day before yesterday:
It's hard to tell when this day really started, but we'll say it started when I woke up after finally getting an hour or so of sleep - say 7am. Groggy, not too happy, kindof hungry, and very tired. Packed up, thought about letting the air of a few people's tires, thought better of that, then headed out of the campground. Stopped at a gas station for breakfast after a couple miles - typical bacon, eggs, and gravy type breakfast. Gradually, the riding day got better and better; good weather, cool people, not too many bad drivers, and by the end of the day (~70 miles,) wonderful accomodations! There's a large baptist church in Sebree, KY that's been hosting bikers for a while now, and I managed to stay there as well! Violet, wife of preacher Bob, took me in along with JJ and Aaron, two eastbound riders. We got to shower, Violet did our laundry, we had a large space to spread out and relax, and to top it off Violet made us an excellent dinner! Good night, a very nice way to recover from the craziness of last night. Had a chance to talk with the eastbounders for a good while and got many tips about places to stay, alternate route bits, all that good stuff. Think that tomorrow I'll spend pretty much the entire day off route, but will cut off a solid 40 miles of riding by taking a more direct route to Carbondale!

The day before the day before yesterday:
Shorter day today, don't remember the milage off the top of my head, but I think it was about 60 total. Gradual rolling hills most of the day, with a heavy thunderstorm in the early afternoon. Fortunately, it was one of those very well defined thunderstorms that you can see the edge of, so I pulled into a gas station for lunch a few minutes before the sky let loose. The storm was intense, but very short, so by the time I was done eating, it had turned into a mild sporadic drizzle. Talked with some old time farmers for a while, then took off for the campground at Falls of Rough. Got there soon after leaving the gas station and reserved a campsite in what I thought was a quiet corner of the campground. Setup camp and took a nap before making dinner, then trying to go to sleep. Some local guys (~8-10 people) setup camp right next door and commenced with drinking, general roudiness, etc until sunup. Not a fun night. There was everything from friendly, but annoying, drunk people, loud talking, arguments, crying, fighting, breaking glass, more yelling, loud cars, bright lights, more annoying people, someone spraining their ankle (I got out of bed and checked it out - figured it would be good for someone with a little less alcohol in their system to see what was up - it was no biggie and they decided not to do anything about it,) blablabla. At any rate, I didn't sleep at all until a little break between 6 and 7am or something along those lines. Should've called the police early on, but honestly I kept assuming someone else already had, and I didn't have cell reception to make the call either way. Oh well.

New Haven, KY

Just a quick checkin from a conveniently located and air conditioned library in New Haven, KY. It's hot out, some guy at the park in Springfield, KY where I slept last night said it's supposed to get to 95 today so I started pretty early. Also rather windy, and the wind is out of the South or Southwest, incidentally the direction I'm headed most of the day. Not fun weather.

Was on the road by 7ish, picked up some groceries, breakfast, and visited an ATM before heading out of Springfield. The scenery has been nice and, although my legs are feeling something like jello, the hills haven't been too bad. Now it's 11am and I've only got another 15 or so miles to go today. Unfortunately, I'm coming up to a stretch where there aren't many camping options listed, so I'll have to quit fairly early today (although still covering 60-something miles of the route) to avoid having to do a super long day in the hot weather.

Took a 'shortcut' this morning - after Springfield, the official route makes a large semicircle to get over to Bardstown, I took state road 150, which is a much more direct line between the two. Heard it shaves off 8 miles or so, although I forgot to check that. First couple miles were very nice with wide shoulders and light traffic, then after that I started very much regretting that idea. Lots of truck traffic had me pulling off the road every few hundred yards, and as usual KY DOT has put those annoying grooves on the edge of the road that let you know when you're about to run off the road. Although I 'can' ride on those things, it's a last resort as they make it hard to control the bike, hard to see, very uncomfortable, and probably increase dental bills by a fair margin. Anyways, made it alive and the rest of the ride has been much more peaceful and quiet. Might get around to taking some pictures today as I only have another hour or so until getting to the destination for the night, we'll see!

Getting out of town

So, I've taken 3 zero days in a row, about to head out of Berea finally. Accidentally opened pandora's box the other day and took a look at my financial aid situation for next school year - 40% reduction in my aid package and 18% increase in tuition. Not so sure this ride makes much financial sense, going to be thinking about that one a bit... Anyways, it'll probably be a while until the next update, hopefully it'll be from a good bit west of here!

Some daily update things

Sunday and Monday have been spent just kickin' around Berea - not too much interesting stuff really. Just been eating a lot, helping mom with doing some house reorganizing stuff, and other random things. Think I'm going to spend all of tomorrow (Tuesday) hanging around here as well because I'm lazy and a few other transam bikers should be getting into town. A few days back, I invited them to crash here at my mom's house - figured it would be polite to at least get them situated before heading on west :).

Saturday was an epic day. Woke up at the B&B in Hindman and got on the road about 7am. Decided that I'd just keep riding and see what time it was when I got to Booneville, my tentative stopping point. Planned to stay there if I arrived after 2pm or so, otherewise I'd roll on into Berea if I felt like it. Ended up eating lunch in Booneville, and although I was feeling a bit tired at that point (it had already been a longish distance day considering terrain,) I decided to push on to Berea. Got to feeling a lot better once the hills got a little smaller and the food started digesting - it's amazing how closely energy levels and food consumption get tied together on these long trips. Overall, the day wasn't that exciting really. Weather was generally overcast, humid, and warm. The roads were quiet 2 laners for the most part - no shoulders as usual lately, but not enough traffic to make that a problem. Rode past some coal mines, wasn't the first time I've done that on this trip, but it was the first time that mines had actually been visible from the road. At one particularally big place where you could see that an entire mountain had been levelled into surrounding valleys. Nasty to look at, but it's the reality of the society we live in. Arrived in Berea around 6pm, 121 miles later.

Friday sucked. Got up at Breaks Interstate Park on the border of Virginia and Kentucky, and left a little on the later side of things - hit the road around 9. Awesome start to the day with a nice downhill stretch with nice turns and no traffic. I love being able to zoom down windy roads and use whatever part of the road I want. Takes too much conentration to stick on the edge, and the edge isn't usually smooth (or wide) enough to safely tuck in and haul it downhill. Topped out at 48mph - new personal record! Then, as I was riding through a small town several miles later, I must've hit something sharp because my front tire went flat. Bummer, but it didn't take too long to switch out to a fresh tube and get back on the road. There was an amazing difference between the western edge of Virginia and the eastern edge of Kentucky - blew me away. While the Virginia side had been definitely Appalachian, the Kentucky side was much farther toward the poverty end of the scale. Lots of garbage along the sides of the roads, very funky housing situations, dangerously rusted out vehicles, loose chickens, skin and bone dogs, all that sort of stuff. Had a minor dog chasing incident, but it didn't amount to much. Lots of traffic and lousy roads followed over the next several miles of hilly asphalt. Had a couple drivers give me a hard time - one guy in a utility truck was passing me and decided to blast the horn while he was right beside me, and a few people in cars yelled random stuff about getting off the road. The roads were either narrow 2 lane roads, generally without centerlines, or wider roads with tons of traffic and shoulders, but the shoulders had that corrugation treatment so that they make cars hum to warn drivers that they're getting close to the edge. Why the hell they do that on a popular bike route is beyond me, but it makes for a very frustrating day when there's adequate space to be biking safely off on the edge, but you're forced to ride out in traffic. Heavy traffic, including lots of trucks, on the way into Hindman, and to top it off I had another flat when I got off the road to avoid a sketchy looking situation with a few big trucks and no shoulder. Eventually made my way to a B&B that provides "camping" for a minimum $20 "donation." In all honesty, it was a good setup as they provided showers, laundry (as in they handle doing the laundry,) and they actually have a large tent where you just go and sleep rather than having to pitch your own setup. Just seemed weird to advertise it as a camping place rather than "B&B, but in a tent and without the other B." Slept really well and had a chance to catch up with some friends on the phone.

Thursday was a short one from Council, VA to Breaks Interstate Park on the border of VA and KY. Some hills, but nothing too bad as it was only 30 miles or so. Quite a few coal trucks, but really they're generally very courteous drivers and not much of a problem if you're polite and pull off if a blind turn or whatever is coming.

The trip so far

It's not been two weeks since I started riding on this trip, and I'm close to being a quarter of the way to the Pacific in terms of mileage. Basically done with the Appalachians now, from here on west, things are supposed to flatten out until the rockies in southern Colorado. I feel like I'm getting into decent biking shape, finally, and have gotten into the rhythm of bike touring for the most part.

Bike touring is definitely different from anything I've done so far, although much of it is similar to backpacking. So far, the food on this trip has been much better than any backpacking trip I've been on - most of my meals have been prepared hot for me rather than being cooked up on my little alcohol stove. Granted, those meals generally come from gas stations and aren't that great in comparison to normal food, they are perfect for providing tons of calories and satisfying the tummy with something greasy and filling :). Buying prepared food is a bit more expensive though, so I'm planning on doing more cooking in the coming weeks. Part of the issue has been that there haven't been many substantial grocery resupply options, so there hasn't been much backpacking type food available to cook. The camping situation hasn't been all that great compared to backpacking trips I've been on, most of the campsites have either been in towns or in commercial RV park type campgrounds. Showers have been plentiful, but I'd prefer more solitude if given the choice. Socially, the trip has been interesting, haven't met too many other transam bikers (five, specifically,) but have met several bike tourers on other routes, a few local riders, and lots of local residents or tourists. Biking isn't as conducive to conversation as walking is - you're either huffing up hills or have wind blowing in your ears on the downhills - so usually the riding part of the day is fairly solitary.

Overall, I've been enjoying the trip for the most part. It's neat to move 50+ miles in a single day by bike - far enough that there's a notable difference in scenery between breakfast and dinner, but at a slow enough pace to get a feel of the area. It's been nice to live without a rigid schedule or homework assignments for the last couple weeks, and nice to just ride a bike all the time.

Looking forward to heading out of Berea either tomorrow or the next day as I'll soon be riding through country that I've never been near before! I'm glad to be done with coal country, and with the end of the Appalachians, the terrain should be leveling out a bit. Hills are pretty, but pedaling a loaded bike over them all day long does get a bit tiring.

In Berea!

Really long (~120 miles) day yesterday brought me all the way into Berea, KY from Hindman, KY. Will do some more posting later on, also going to fix up that last post, do some maintenance on the bike, and eat a lot of food.