Day 29 - Cassoday, KS to Nickerson, KS - 90 mi

After nailing out 100 miles yesterday I had no problem falling asleep. On the trip I have started using ear plugs to reduce the group noise throughout the night, but last night I could have probably fallen asleep without them. We are currently staying at small town parks throughout Kansas so everyone is a little bit more grungy as we haven't had access to showers or laundry facilities in a few days.

This morning I took the liberty of riding Joe Ferrell's bike as he was one of the two route leaders manning the van all day. This was super fun for two reasons. First off, his racing bike weighs about half of what my touring bike weighs (notice the one hand pickup - not so easy with my bike) so I was able to pedal at the same rate but move less bike around the roads.


Secondly, he has a set of aero bars attached to the front handlebars of the bike so that i could drop down and pick up extra speed while pedaling. This made for a pretty fast morning, but I am used to riding in my Brooks Saddle and Joe's seat was not quite as comfortable. I equated the experience to riding his zippy little BMW around this morning before switching back to my Cadillac in the afternoon to prevent a sore back/body in the morning. This was definitely a good call as my knees, back, arms, and bum were getting tired/sore by mid-afternoon.

Today was an experimental day with bikes for me and an experimental day with mileage for the Carbondale Crew (all the guys from SIU/Carbondale) as many of them planned to head out around 4 am to destroy (or be destroyed by) a 200 mile day to an air conditioned hotel room and a day of rest afterwards. I politely declined my invitation to the ride and decided to stick with the back-to-back 100 and 90 mile days.

We definitely started riding through production agriculture Kansas yesterday and it was in full effect today. I saw fields of corn, wheat, sun flowers, soy beans, and hay to name a few. This reminds me of my childhood being raised in Wisconsin where you see the massive sprinkler systems strewn through the fields to water corn, etc.


I found myself riding late this afternoon thinking - man, I haven't taken very many pictures today! I kinda felt like today's ride was semi-monotonous and forgot to really take many pictures. We hit a really picturesque road in Kansas yesterday where I was snapping photos of the wide open plains and fields, so today's ride was much of the same but not quite as pretty. I probably need to make an effort to take more pictures of the group of people so I remember the conversations, friends, etc.

On a side note, I did come across this road sign today and wanted to put in a shout out to my wife Salli who is currently working hard in the North woods of Minnesota (specifically the Marcell Experimental Forest) doing field work for her PhD at the University of Minnesota and probably waging an all out war against black flies, mosquitoes, and chiggers.


What up wife!?!