Biking Across Kansas
June 10th-17th, 1989
Back when I was playing a lot of racquetball and racquetball tournaments, one of the guys that was part of the racquetball crowd just happened to be the director of the Bike Across Kansas (and had been since it's inception in 1975), a bike tour that went from the Colorado/Kansas border, over to the Kansas/Missouri border.The year I signed up for it, there was a boatload of people who did the ride, and there were three separate tour routes across the state to accomodate everyone (I think there's only one route for the 2012 edition of the ride). I signed up with a couple of my racquetball buddies for the southernmost route ("Tumbleweed").
Here's the map of the route I rode:
As I was working in Philadelphia for several months leading up to the BAK, that was where I was doing my prep riding in order to be in shape for the tour. As it worked out, the suburbs of Philly (no big surprise!) are not all that conducive to long distance bike training. It was somewhat death-defying every time you got out on the road. Narrow roads with NO shoulders, lots of intersections, lots of traffic, and drivers who are absolutely convinced without a doubt that anyone on a bike is merely an obstacle that should be somewhere else instead of blocking traffic. Needless to say, I was only putting in about two rides a week and, other than the 40 mile Five Boro Bike Tour, I was only putting in about 18-22 miles on my rides. It's so good to be young. :-)
The Tumbleweed Route started in Johnson City, KS on a sort of cool and cloudy day. We had two options: we could chuck our bike onto a flatbed trailer and one of the local farmers would shuttle you and your bike the 19 miles to the border, where you would start the ride. OR, you could ride your bike out to the border, tag it, and then officially start the ride, adding about 20 miles to the day. Being young and stupid, I opted to ride with my friends to the border and skip the lift. I would regret that before the end of the day. The picture below is the morning of June 10th, me with friends John (L) and Paul (R) Cantrell at the state line. John was Paul's son and they both played racquetball with me. As I was putting this page together, I got curious and did a Google search on them and turned up an obituary for John (only 44!) from the fall of 2011. It doesn't say anything other than he was "taken unexpectedly" on Oct. 27th. Dammit. He was a good guy.
A shot of the border launch zone on the morning of June 10th.
And we began. By the end of day one, I'd done 83.1 miles, double the longest bike ride of my life up to that point. So much for training and score one for youth!!! I recall it got pretty grim later on that first day, with wind and the pancake flat prairie stretching out in front of you. I remember being pretty elated when I saw a white grain elevator on the horizon that I knew was Satana, the town we were staying in that night.
We'd have a sort of launch some mornings where the trip leaders would tell us about any specific hazards that day, and remind us to keep to the side of the road, don't flip off any drivers, and things like that. I only recall one bad situation from the ride that year, on the northernmost route. Every night, we'd have a short meeting of everyone to go over the day, get reminders, talk about the route the next day and such. One night, they came in and told us some a-hole in a semi had gone out of his way to run one of the riders (a woman) off the road, she'd gone down an embankment in a horrendous wreck with her bike, and was in the hospital with a broken pelvis and other nasty injuries. A reminder that you can sometimes do all the right stuff and still get jacked by some nimrod who shouldn't be operating machinery (as I recall, the cops did catch the guy).
I was all set for another ugly day on day two, but as it turned out I had a nice recovery and we cruised all the way into Dodge City, 65.9 miles up the road. I wish I had some fun photos of Dodge City and it's square miles of smelly feed lots, but alas, I don't seem to have any. Seems like we might have visited Boot Hill while we were there.
I'm not sure where the next photo was taken, but probably at one of the sag stops. Volunteers (usually family members of some of the riders that were tagging along on the trip) would station themselves along the route and dispense fruit, water, and other snacks during the day. Paul (in red below) and I were matched pretty good and rode a lot of the route together. John, a strong rider with lots of miles under his belt, would take off at high speed and usually be one of the first finishers of the day. You can see my Schwinn bike with the yellow tape in front of him.
Day three, we rode from Dodge City to St. John, logging 78.3 miles. My journal notes for the day say that we had an off-side tailwind that had us really flying for about 20 miles before we turned and it became a headwind. After that, it says I "rode into St. John with knees dragging and thighs blowed."
Another shot of Paul, probably taken right before or right after the one above.
In the first three days, Paul and I had hooked up with this group of young kids (16-18 or so) and we would often run a paceline (line of riders where we'd rotate, taking turns being the lead rider in order to break the wind for the rest) and be able to go faster as a result. Most of the kids were pretty solid riders, and you felt okay flying down the road at 20+ mph about three inches from their back wheel, but this one kid was sort of a known issue and you had to watch it when you were behind him. In the photo below, John and Paul are back in the corner and the three kids we were riding with are at the table to the right. The dicey kid (more on him below) is the one in the blue shirt on the right.
Day 4's ride was from St. John to Hesston (about 7 miles from my hometown of Newton). We had quite a few miles behind us and about 20 minutes east of Hutchinson (see map above) when disaster struck. I was running about fourth in the paceline. The dicey kid was in the lead. He was tired and went to pull out to the left to let the next guy lead, but he pulled the bonehead move of slowing down and then pulling out. He hooked the front tire of the kid behind him and swept it out from under him. As expected, dicey-kid rode away from the ensuing wreckage without a scratch. The kid behind him went down sideways, the third guy went slightly left and rode over his knee and that left me pretty much dead center at 20 mph and nowhere to go but over him. I had the brakes on full when I hit him in the back and I just rotated over him, landing on my helmet and back and sliding off into the ditch off the side of the road. I was wearing a tank top that day (bad idea, by the way) and my shoulder looked like raw hamburger. I also had a thumb that was completely jacked from being bent backwards. So we're all laying in a pile all over the road and I start yelling "I'm road pizza!!", which I thought was pretty funny at the time. Nobody else saw the humor. We pick ourselves up and check the damage. The kid who was second in line had a pretty messed up bike and his forearm looked like he'd run a cheese grater on it. The next kid was also road rashed, but nothing too serious. Paul had been far enough back in line to be able to avoid the wreckage. We limped up the road to the next sag stop, where we dropped off the kid and his messed up bike, then continued. All day long, people were offering me creams, salves, and ointments for my hamburgered shoulder. After we got into Hesston, where we staying that night (I only did 40.1 miles that day), I heade over to the nearest clinic to get my shoulder and thumb looked at. It was really fun when the doctor took a plastic scrub brush to the 6" road rash on my shoulder to clean it out. They should make that one of the rides at Disney World. My thumb was just sprained, so they made a splint for it and sent me on my way.
The whole gang in front of store where we got snacks. Not sure where it was taken.
This is the general accomodations for most of us. We would stay at the high school for whatever town we were in that night. There were a few folks who brought along a tent and would camp out in the school yard, but all in all, I wasn't too bummed that I wasn't setting up and tearing down a tent every day. A truck would haul your big duffle to the next town, you pick it up and you're set for the night.
Day 5, we ride from Hesston straight into Newton, my home town. I made a little detour by my parent's place to say hey, and my mom (needless to say) was pretty psyched about the big patch on my shoulder and my thumb being in a splint. I promised to be careful and headed on down the road. Day 5 was a GIANT day for us as it was the designated century day (where we could ride 100 miles to complete a century ride). We had to do some veering out and around the course for the day to pull this off, but by the time we arrived at the Eureka High School that day, I had 99.1 miles on my bike computer. We took a shower and rode our bike downtown (putting us over the 100 mile mark) where we had a few beers to celebrate the 100 mile day. I finished up with 101.5 miles for the day.
If you could read the bike computer in the photo below, you would see it says 101.5 miles. The digital photo age (where you can see if your photo is focused right away) wouldn't hit for another 11 or 12 years. Sigh.
Another sag stop photo. I can't determine where this is located by looking at a map, but I think it was on day 5.
On Day 6, we put in 67.6 miles from Eureka to Iola. I don't see any noteworthy stuff in my journal log for the day, other than I lowered my set slightly to try to help my knees out. Another shot of the nightly accomodations below.
On Day 7, we put in 50 miles, riding from Iola to Mound City. This seems a bit out of the way now. I suppose they were trying to sync up the mileage for the three different routes. Who knows. Nothing noteworthy in the log except that we hammered pretty hard all day and finished up at 11:30am.
The last day, we rode from Mound City south to St. John and from there out east to the Kansas-Missouri state line. My log says this was hilly, windy, rough road and kind of a grunt. We put in 44.3 miles for the day, riding back from the border to St. John for the end of ride party.
Coming up to the border in my favorite kamakazie bike jersey:
At the Kansas-Missouri border:
The whole gang (not sure where John was) at the Kansas-Missouri border:
It was a lot of fun doing that ride. I met some really cool people and it was a nice "bucket list" type of experience. Taught me that an 80 mile bike ride wasn't that big of a deal if nothing else.
My journals says the next day I "Relaxed. Took the bike apart and washed it." And I ran three miles.
Ahhh youth.
