Day 23 124 miles 5117 feet of climbing 10.1 wind blasted ave

Springfield, CO to Trinidad, CO

We knew we were in for a tough day before we even started. We had to run more than 120 miles to get to the next town with a motel and the wind was forecast to blow in our face.

Well this time the weatherman hit the nail on the head. The wind kicked up early and hot coming out of WSW. Basically a dead on head wind for the road we were traveling. It blew at a steady 25-30 mph reducing our forward speed to less than 9mph on a flat road most of the day.

I know I have said it before but any cyclist will tell you nothing is worse than the wind. She (the wind) dished out a severe and deliberate beating to us today. We must have called her one too many names over the last few days. And today we had no way out…no back-up plan other than sleep on the side of the road.

This part of Colorado is a vast grassland that is part of the National Forest Service. You may as well be on the moon because once you pass Kim ,CO there is not a thing but thousands upon thousands of acres of dried grass. Not a house, store …not even a stop sign. To put in better perspective the school in Kim, CO handles grades K-12. It’s district covers 1500 square miles!!!! And for all of that territory the school has 67 students …total!!

We started the morning buy stocking the bikes with extra food and water. We bought 24 bottles of water, snacks and a grinder. Each rider took 8 bottles.

The wind along with temperatures in the high 80’s sucked every drop of moisture out of us. All of our lips are chapped badly and we are faces fried from the sun.

Our journey today was all on RT 160 in southern Colorado. This road sees almost no traffic at all. You can ride for hours in the middle of the road and no cars will pass you. Most of RT 160 is as straight as an arrow and the scenery does not change…..Grass…grass and more grass.

It was about mid-day and the sun was bright and hot. All of our water was warm and you really get no satisfaction drinking it. The water is just to keep you hydrated. One of the very few vehicles to pass us went down the road for a stretch then turned around and stopped. As we approached the driver and his wife got out of the pick-up. “Do you boys want something cold to drink?” These people went out of their way to stop and offer us something they knew we needed. Cold fluids. We graciously accepted the offer and out of their cooler came some nice cold sodas. They also had some food to offer but we still had a good supply on-board.
They were from Oklahoma traveling in Colorado. We gulped down the cold sodas and talked a while. They even offered to travel in front of us at bike speed to block our wind since we still had 50+ miles to go. All of this took place in the middle of the road. Like I said desolate. Another example of great Americans always ready to help. They were just plain old good people.

As we got closer to Trinidad the next set of bumps began to appear in front of us. They consumed the entire horizon and rose all the way into the clouds. The Rockies! A very impressive sight to see, almost scary. But after all this wind “Give us the Hills”

The wind slowed us down so much we did not arrive at our sleep stop until 10:30 PM. To be honest Joe put it right… the wind takes the fun out of riding. He is right, today was torture.

Day 22 76 miles 2294 feet of climbing 11.5 ave

Ulysses KS to Springfield CO

Our day started off with moderate winds and plenty of sun. A major improvement over yesterday’s gale force winds so we were happy campers. The forecast was for more high winds but it appeared the weatherman missed this one. At least we thought he did…..

When you travel west the days get noticeably longer. Eventually the sun is still up at 8:45 PM. Of course the correction for this are the time zones. Today we entered the Mountain Time Zone. Pushing us now 2 hours ahead of the east coast where we started.

About 40 miles into our day we reached the Colorado border. Boy you really know you are far from home when you see that sign. We were all ready for a new state too. Kansas is a big place and took five days to traverse. I saw fields of wheat that were bigger than Connecticut.

We knew we had a relatively easy day planned of about 75 miles. The reason for this again is motel availability. Places to stay are getting few and far between and our day’s trek is always based on that.

We squandered some of our time at water stops knowing we had plenty of time to spare. All of our “spare” time got sucked up quick when the predicted winds finally did kick in. In a matter of minutes the slight breeze turned into a steady 30 mph cross wind.

One thing we had going for us was the road was virtually without any traffic. At least we would not be getting bullied around by the tractor-trailers going by. The wind steadily increased and eventually turned directly into our faces. With less than 15 miles to go our forward progress had been reduced to less than 8mph pushing hard.

The wind has us begging for the mountains. Hopefully we will be protected from the wind and will only have to deal with the climbing. At least you have some control over that. You have no control of the wind.

Day 21 82 wind blown miles 3576 feet of climbing 11.8 ave

Dodge City KS to Ulysses Kansas

The wind finally won today and beat us into submission. We knew it was going to be a difficult day when we saw the weather report. South winds at 25-35 mph with higher gusts were predicted. There was also a threat of thunderstorm’s, hail and tornado's.

Our plan was to ride to Johnson City Kansas about 105 miles from Dodge City to a motel we had booked the day before.

The steady 30+ mph wind had us riding with our bikes leaned to one side like we were making a turn. When a large truck would fly by we would loose the wind momentarily and the bikes would right themselves only to get blown over a second later as the truck passed. This scenario played out over and over again. Occasionally two trucks would pass and you would get a “double whammy”. Wow… that would get you attention quick.

Along our route we came across a large wind-generating farm. It consisted of 170 wind turbines each standing 30 stories high from the ground to the tip pf the blade. They were lined up in rows planted in the wheat fields. The turbines only turning 28 rpm produce 112 megawatts of power enough electricity to power 37,000 homes.

It was oblivious why they picked this area for the turbines. The wind normally blows through there like a hurricane. The local’s say no matter where you go in Kansas it is windy much of the time. With no tree cover or hills the wind is free to terrorize the innocent cyclist.

We also passed huge cattle feed farms were thousands of head of cattle are eating all the feed and grain they want…. For a while anyway……

The road we traveled was without services of any kind most of the day. No gas stations, convenience stores…nothing. Just vast fields of grain as far as the eye can see in any direction. You can ride for 20 miles and not even pass a farmhouse.

The roads are straight, flat and end at the horizon. If you look down and pedal for an hour then look up it seems you have gone nowhere…the view is the same.

Again keeping enough fluids on the bike became a problem. Ken ended up needing to stop at a farm and asking to have his water bottles re-filled. Tim ran out of water a while later and rode quite a ways before his thirst could be quenched.

As we approached Ulysses Kansas the winds started to increase. Now blowing near 40 mph riding became treacherous. One big gust took both Ken and Tim right off the road into the grass. This was the wake-up call. It had become too windy to cycle safely. The idea is to actually make it to California without band-aids.

Joe had already pulled his bike to the side of the road and watched Tim and Ken fight the wind on their way up to him. We decided it had become too dangerous to continue. According to the weather radios have, the tornado threat was just behind us moving east not a problem. But the highest winds were still just ahead of us in the next county.

Our first thought was to find a place to hunker down in Ulysses for a while to see if it would calm down enough to continue. Less than a quarter mile up the road was a clean and relatively new looking motel.

We decided to cancel our Johnson City reservation 20 miles away and stay there. That ended up being the correct choice because even at 8PM the wind was still howling at 30 to 40mph.

Today the wind won the battle. Tomorrows forecast is not any better and possibly worse. The wind direction will be west (in our face) and still 25-30 mph. It is not going to be a pretty sight.

Day 20 84 miles 2668 feet of climbing 13.3 ave

Pratt, KS to Dodge City, KS

Today our plans included picking up the badly needed supplies in Ford KS via General Delivery and to continue onto the famous western cattle town Dodge City.

As every morning our first stop of the day is to stock the bikes with fluids and food. We pulled into one of the Love’s Country Stores. They are a large chain of convenience stores in this part of the country.

We were wondering around the store looking at our choices when the District Manager who was talking to the store manager asked Ken about our journey. After giving him a quick run down he said he admired us for what we were doing and then told us to take what ever we needed in the store it was on him!!! FREE!

“Get some drinks and food …you got a cooler on those bikes? Fill them up”. We grabbed a few things and the manager was looking around the store trying to find us some other goodies. Amazing how a nice a perfect stranger treated us. We almost felt bad taking the supplies but knew he wanted us to. Just another example of good people in this great country. Remember when you travel…Love’s Stores are the right choice.

The wind was blowing 25 to 35 mph but lucky for us it was coming out of the southeast. This gave us a stiff cross wind but a slight push from the rear. The forecast was for increasing winds with gusts over 50mph in the evening. We would be safe in Dodge City by then. We had a mostly sunny day but ended up traveling on a busy road for a few hours. It had a very wide shoulder so it was safe but noisy.

Our travels took us through the town Greensburg destroyed by a F5 tornado just a year ago. (Worth doing a Google Search). We were told by one of the locals who went through it and survived the tornado was just under over a mile and a half wide! Can you imagine what something that big and nasty looked like bearing down on you!! No thanks.

The damage was still evident even a year later. Any building now in town was new and all the trees still standing were snapped half way up. The town still looked like war zone in some areas.

After seeing all this we hear the weekend forecast is for severe weather where we are headed tomorrow. The storms are due in the afternoon and we have a 100 miles planned to make our next rest stop. Hopefully we can beat the worst of it.


Just past Greensburg we came across a huge collection of metal sculptures on the edge of a field. Hundreds of them!! Most were very comical.

When we arrived in Dodge City dinner was the first order of business after securing a room. We asked the motel clerk if she could recommend a place we could get some pasta. “PASTA?!?!” she replied….. “Not in this town, don’t you know where you are? This is cattle country.” Steaks, beef, ribs…. We realized we had almost violated a city ordnance by asking for a non-beef product and went to the closest steak house.

You know you’re in cattle country when the pie on the dessert menu is Beef Pot Pie…not Apple Pie.

Once back at the motel we did the necessary bike repairs and tire swapping from the supplies we picked up at the Post Office and laundry.

Kansas has been nice but is is time to “Get out of Dodge” and head for Colorado and the Rockies.

Day 19 85 miles 2262 feet of climbing 12.9 ave

Wichita KS to Pratt KS

Today’s winds were not as strong and switched over from the west to the northeast. This made for much better cycling conditions for us. No howling winds blasting us in the face and dragging us down.

Our route took us onto some remote paved farming roads. Once we left the city limits all traffic completely disappeared. We rode for over 60 miles without coming across anything but wheat fields. No stores, cars or people…nothing. This gave us sixty miles of peaceful riding in the center of the road without the threat of traffic.

Lucky for us we had plenty of fluids and snacks already onboard the bikes. We will have more of these remote conditions as we ride into Colorado. We already know of one 120-mile stretch coming up with no services at all.

The wind moved the wheat in waves and with the shadows the fields appeared as huge green oceans. It was an amazing constantly changing site that kept us occupied.

When we approached Pratt Kansas we had a decision to make. Continue onto Greenfield another 32 miles or end the day a little early. Greenfield was the next town with a place to sleep. We had time to complete the added miles but decided to grab the needed rest the short day would give us. This ended up to be the correct decision as we later found out.

We secured a room then hopped back onto the bikes and headed into town for dinner. As we were coming out of the restaurant a few locals asked us about our journey. We found out they were from Greenfield the town we had decided not to continue on to.

Like I said, that ended up to be the right decision. Less than a year ago 95% of that town was destroyed by a tornado. The remaining 5% of the buildings still standing were damaged. The motels were GONE. We would have had to travel well into the night or turn around to find a place to sleep.

The man said when the storm hit he ran into a closet and lucky for him that was the only thing left standing of his house. Many people have left the town and the rest are still rebuilding. Tomorrow we will ride trough this town and see what Mother Nature can do.

It is not uncommon for large pieces of farm equipment to drive through the center of town. We look at the green John Deere monsters passing through in amazement; the locals don’t give them a second glance.

Our main event for tomorrow will be to rendezvous with the post office in Ford KS to pick up the package of parts mailed to us. Hopefully this goes as planned.

Day 18 105 Headwind miles 2627 feet of climbing 11.4 ave

Yates Center, KS to Wichita, KS

The wind has no mercy. It does not care that your bike weighs 60+ pounds and has saddlebags that act like parachutes. The wind punished us today for deciding to ride east to west against the prevailing winds.

Kansas has thousands of acres open pastureland with no trees to block even the slightest breeze. Today’s gift from Mother Nature was a 25-35 mph west wind in our face.

One gust grabbed Joe’s water bottle right out of his hand as he went for a drink and blew it off the road. It was blowing so hard at one point our top speed going DOWNHILL “pedaling” was less than 10 mph!!!! I did say downhill…. If we were to stop pedaling the bikes would have gone backwards.

The wind finally calmed down to a mere roar around 4PM. We were able to get the bikes back up to speed as we reached Wichita.

Joe’s brother, wife and son drove two hours to meet us for dinner. He is in the Army and stationed in Kansas. They also picked us up some needed supplies for us and brought them along. It was nice to see them and we were glad they came by.

The temperature drifted into the 90’s and our fluid consumption was up. One other little problem in Kansas is the lack of watering holes. Forget finding convenience stores on every corner. These farms are not a couple 50 acres each they measure these farms in square miles. At one point we went fluid critical. 90+ degree heat, no fluids and no towns in site. We decided to go off route in search of water. We found the only open store in a small town…. A pizza joint. We asked if they was a place we could by bottled water…nope not in this town! We ordered a round of sodas and then filled our water bottles there before we left.

Ken’s wife Debbie has put a package together and shipped it Express Mail to “General Delivery” in Ford Kansas for us to pick up. $60!!! Ouch… but we need it. This has the tires and tubes that are so badly needed. Also in this package is a new chain to replace the one we have installed a repair link on. If all goes well we should have the package Wednesday.

Day 17 100 miles 2581 feet of climbing 12.2 average

El Dorado Springs, MO to Yates Center, Kansas

We had breakfast with some older local farmers at McDonalds this morning. They were a haliarious bunch.

Left Missouri and entered Kansas today before noon. we got an early start as the Motel gave us no reason to stay any longer then necessary...

Tonights hotel is just one or two notchs better than last nights. W are going to have to "bag" it again tonight, cheap at 55 bucks

The tire situation is getting dire, KS two more flats and JG had a sidewall fail and had to install our spare folding tire.

More stiff winds today. Mid 80s and sunny we are pretty well tanned... lite traffic made the riding nice. I think the winds are here to stay and the hills are gone until the Rockies.

The early warning system out on the plains is impressive. Sirens everywhere