Kiki Bikes Across America

Friday, June 26th – Hutchinson, KS to Larned, KS

Today we got up at 2am and made pancakes at the Zion Lutheran Church and then we rolled out around 3:45am. We had 70 miles to do and 58 of those miles with no services whatsoever – in other words, no gas stations, no general stores, nada. We rode 10 miles to Nickerson which is the last place with services – and they even had a gas station open at 4:30am or so when we rolled through. We didn’t stop though since we were full on water and food and all. We kept on riding and then the sun started to come up shortly thereafter. I snapped a few photos as the sun rose and we continued on the very straight road for 60 miles to Larned. We stopped about 40 miles into the ride this morning at an intersection with the one and only house we’d seen in 30 miles. The lady was just leaving for work, I presume and she stopped and asked if we wanted water so we took her up on that and then the guys made pasta for their morning brunch or lunch or whatever you want to call it. I just had pop tarts since I didn’t feel like pasta that early in the morning.

Just about to head out and finish the last 30 miles, we were stopped by a guy in his pickup. He’s from Oregon originally and said he always dreamed of riding across the  country, but hadn’t found the time yet. He wanted to take a photo of us, so he did. Just as he was finishing we saw two other cyclists (Cindie and Tim Travis) going west to east so they stopped and we talked for a bit. Their plan is to cycle the world over the course of several years – however, they’ve already been at it for 7 years (since March 2002)!!! They have been all over the place – you should check out their website at http://www.DownTheRoad.org.

We arrived to Larner just after 11am after about 12 miles of grueling headwinds causing us lots of frustration and slowing us down to 9-10mph for that portion. There was another nice long section of road where you could see as far as the eye would allow you and the road just continued into the horizon. Fields of corn on both sides of the road and all you see is blue sky above the horizon and green corn on the lower half of your view. It was incredible how much open space there is in Kansas. Photos don’t capture what it really looks like, but it’s my best effort to do so. We biked past many oil fields as well – LOTS of oil fields are out here it seems.

Now we’re in Larner waiting to find out if the Methodist Church will let us sleep there tonight – they’re letting us relax there this afternoon until 4:30 at least (when the office closes), but hopefully the pastor will have returned by then and be able to tell us if it’s okay or not to stay in the church. If not, we’ll be out looking for a place to camp or stay indoors (preferrably). We went to Pizza Hut shortly after arriving to Larner and after dropping off our gear at the church so we wouldn’t have to lug it around anymore. We all did the all-you-can-eat buffet at Pizza Hut for $5.99 and boy did we eat! I ate so much as I was so hungry from not having had all the calories the past couple of days that I usually have. I was a bit worried about upsetting my stomach more so was careful with what I ate.

Just for those who wonder how many calories you need to eat to keep biking… at Pizza Hut, I had:

• 4 pieces of pizza
• 2 pieces of apple dessert pizza
• 1 piece of cherry dessert pizza
• 2 breadsticks
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 1 big salad
• 1 big thing of vanilla pudding
• 3 huge glasses of wateer

Lots of calories!

Anyway, the GPS track will be uploaded later – I forgot my cable attached to my bike (it’s the same one I use for powering the GPS from the solar panel but it’s taped to my bike frame to keep from unplugging and disconnecting on me). I just forgot it since I walked to the library.

GPS Stats:
68.9 miles
05:24 moving time
21.0 max speed
12.7 avg speed

Computer Stats:
69.70 miles
05:22:22 moving time
21.0 max speed
13.0 avg speed

Snake count: 1
Dog chases: 0