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Day 23 (Mon 7/20/09)

Kansas here we come and the half way point!!

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ROUTE: Lamar to Garden City, KS DISTANCE:  106 miles TOTAL CLIMBING:  1378 ft

Click here for Garmin daily ride data 

Note the ride data is off slightly because I had forgotten to start the watch. Missing aprox 25 miles of data.

Click here for Summary Data sheet   ***new***

(This is cool if you like lots of data! It may take a few seconds to load but you can hit play and time compress our ride. )


DAILY REPORT:  The weather report called for another ideal biking day. Temps in the high 90's w/ lots of humidity. Tailwinds in the morning followed by head winds in the afternoon. A 40% chance of a thundershower.

Today is a long, long day of biking. Navigation wise it is pretty easy; take Rt 50 and travel to Dodge City KS. We got up and had our continental breakfast @ 0630 and were on the road by 0700. We were slightly delayed because the boys were unable to find their room key. It was ultimately found in their luggage.

We wanted to take advantage of the slight tail wind before it turned into a head wind. In the first 3 hrs we traveled over 60+ miles which gave an average speed of 20.3 mph. That is pretty good!! Shortly there after the wind shifted. Additionally the flat road turned into slight "rollers" which slowed us down. The real killer was the heat and the humidity. It really saps your strength.

About twenty miles into the ride we crossed into Kansas. For us it was very apparent; we shift from a nice asphalt road to a tar and chip road. No were near as nice a road to bike on.

Since we were riding 150 miles today we planned stops at 50 and 100 miles for lunch/snacks. We arrived at our first stop but Skip was not to be found. Turned out he went the wrong direction out of the hotel and was slightly delayed. (And I even called him and left a message on his phone to give him a head's up.)

We stopped for lunch at the 75 mile point. By then the heat was really getting up there and the wind was now a head wind. The boys were beat. We had lunch and then just relaxed (ie cat nap). While we were there we conducted a phone interview with Mandy of the Kitsap Sun. They wanted to do a follow-up article on how we were doing on our trip. It should come out sometime this week.

We are officially at the half way point and have traveled 1,967 miles!!

Skip was working his charm and had gotten a number of free rooms for us over the next several days. However he was having some problems w/ Dodge City. So we discussed possibly stopping short today at Garden City because of the heat, humidity and wind. The twins were in total agreement. Skip was able to acquire a room in two different hotels so that was way better than Dodge City! We want to thank National 9 Inn and Best Western for giving us each a room for the Riding4Hope Team. Thanks much!!

I took a nice cool dip in the pool to cool off. We showered and went out to eat at the Golden Coral. There was a storm front coming in and as the sun set there was a great lighting show as the storm passed by.

Tomorrow we will drive to Doge City and continue our ride from there. That should get us back on schedule and line up w/ the hotel rooms Skip has already arranged.

Thanks for joining us.....ride safely and keep the wind to your back!! 

The Riding4Hope Team

www.riding4hope.org

(David, John, James & Skip)

Signing out 7/21/09; 0030

 

 

 

 

 

YOU DON'T SAY:

James - "I don't want to eat at Golden Coral tonight. I can't control myself!"

John - "It is really HOT today! I mean really HOT!!"

Skip - "This is the second day in a row I have gotten lost on our one and only road [rt 50]!"

David - "Skip, you might want to check your voice mail a little more often. Might keep you from getting lost!!"

DID I REALLY DO THAT?: 

In case you were wondering what they do for entertainment here in Kansas!!

 

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Once we crossed into Kansas we started seeing lots of grain elevators.

OK, it's only 1000 and the temp is 94 deg. We're HOT!!!

Our third time zone - Central Time. What? We just lost an hour of bike time!!

Along the road there were numerous large grass hoppers (locus?) John was able to catch one w/his shirt. They were really big!

Cooling off w/ a nice cold bottle of Gatorade. Plus it was nice and cool inside the gas station/mini mart.

Check out my horns!!

More photos on Facebook Album

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