So, you’re thinking about doing a bike ride and your only requirement is that it be flat. You think one of the mid-western states ought to work. You find out that a number of states in the midwest have organized bike rides and you have a friend you’d like to visit in Kansas City, so how about the “Biking Across Kansas” (BAK) ride? You know - “Flatter than a pancake” Kansas.
As you spread the word looking for fellow adventurers, folks mention that it is kind of hot in June in Kansas. Hot! Who’s afraid of hot? You grew up in Eastern Washington, where it’s really hot. People mention that it can be windy in Kansas. Windy? We live near the Pacific Coast, where the wind never stops! And several people (including the BAK official website), mention that it’s hilly in Kansas. Right - hilly compared to what? We are bracketed by the Cascade and the Olympic mountain ranges. Those are mountains, for gosh sake, not piddly little hills!
So, we sign up, get all our gear (Christian taught me well), get the bikes boxed for flight and head off to Sharon Springs KS via Denver CO. We had done a number of training rides on the Burke-Gilman trail here in Seattle and it has some hills. By the way, our last prep ride was in 64 degree weather so we were acclimated to heat.
First thing we do at Sharon Springs (Friday, June 8) is to sign a waiver stating that BAK is not responsible for any terrible thing that befalls us. Encouraging start. We find a place to pitch our tent on the high school football field with a few hundred other folks (as we will every night for the next week) and reassemble our bikes. The adventure has begun. Oh, it’s ninety-something degrees in the shade, or it would be if there were any shade.
Saturday morning we awake at 0500, have breakfast, pack up, and are on the road by 0700. Heading east with the wind out of the SW about 15 mph with gust up to 30 mph. Kind of pushing us. Which is nice ‘cuz there are some hills and and it gets sort of hot by the time we reach Oakley, 53 miles away. By “sort of hot”, I mean 99 degrees. The people we meet along the way are wonderful, actually happy to see 850 riders come to their towns. By end of day we feel quite pleased with ourselves. At our evening BAK meeting someone mentions that the wind will shift to come out of the north tomorrow and may be stronger. The ice cold shower in the high school gym is refreshing and invigorating, in a masochistic sort of way.
At every town, one or more local groups (high school cheerleaders, 4H Club, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Future Farmers of America, church groups, etc.) puts together a meal for us as a fund-raiser. Lots of spaghetti, pulled pork, taco bars, stuffed baked potatoes, sloppy joes, etc. Often the local children will have lemonade stands by the side of the road as we ride into town. (Sharon Springs to Oakley-53 miles)
Sunday we wake a little earlier, eat a little faster and again hit road by 0700. What happened there? Anyway, it’s cooler and folks who are not from Seattle are complaining about the cold. It’s 59, for heaven’s sake! Light breeze in our face as we get going. Picks up as the sun rises and the wind is heading straight toward us. Gets up to a steady 30-45 mph with gusts up to 65 mph. I ride downhill in low gear peddling as hard as I can and go about 5 mph. Folks going up hill are stopped in their tracks and fall off their bikes. Conversations seem to focus on how many times the wind has pushed you off the road onto the shoulder. This goes on for 19 more miles. What should have been an easy 60-90 minute ride has turned into a 3 hour misery. Riders are flagging down support cars left and right to hitch a ride to the end of today’s stretch. Road turns to the right (East) and the ride gets easier but now the riders and bikes are leaning 30 degrees to the left into the wind to keep upright and when we turn to the ESE (for 2 miles) we are able to coast uphill ( a novel experience)! Veteran BAK-ers are saying they have never before had a day like this. (Oakley to Hoxie-43 miles.) Did we mention the huge bronze statue of Buffalo Bill slaughtering yet another bison in Oakley?
On Monday, we manage to be on the road by 0710. More wind, more hills. (I have decided that KS doesn’t have hills, it has f***ing hills). What it doesn’t have is level ground. We are always going either uphill or downhill. The land is beautiful. We understand the poetry and songs about this part of the country. The people continue to be welcoming and gracious and willing to give us a hand. They are eager to show us their hometown and share what they love about it. The wheat is being harvested and the views are breathtaking - corn, wheat, beans. D has taken to photographing the wildflowers. Hope the pictures come out. People ask us where we’re from and after we tell them “Seattle”, they say, “You came all that way to do this?”. M collapsed onto the grass to rest before dinner and several buzzards started circling overhead, checking to see if he was “ripe” yet. They were disappointed when he got up to go to dinner. (Hoxie to Logan-63 miles)
Tuesday M had 3 flats in 5 mi. Bummer! Not a great way to start the day. D finally found the thorn in the tire and all is good. Yes, we’re sore. Our wrists are sore, our backs are sore and yes, what you are really wondering about is really, really sore. D saw a T-shirt that summed it up: “BAK - The very thought of it makes my butt numb”. Have come to realize that, in Kansas, the first thing one sees of a town ahead is a grain elevator on the horizon. It’s a mean trick, though, because you can sometimes see it from 5 miles away. Did I mention that the wind at 20 to 40 mph is now coming out of the ESE? When we speak of the wind now it has the same adjective as the hills (#?!%$*@). We are passed the halfway point of the ride. How can so many wonderful people live in one state? My wonder is extreme.
A thought has struck me that should have meaning for all the city folk who read this: There are 800+ bikes here, each one priced between $500 and $5000 and there is not a bike lock to be seen. People leave their bikes anywhere and everywhere and no one touches them. Likewise, people plug their cellphones into electrical sockets all over the high schools and walk off and leave them for hours. I can’t get over it, I love it. (Logan to Downs-64 miles)
In Gaylord, we see the first of three replicas of the Statue of Liberty along the BAK route. They really like the Statue of Liberty in Kansas.
On Wednesday, M spends significant time and energy trying to figure out how to rent a car so he can quit this ride and go home to Seattle. D nods sympathetically but, fortunately or unfortunately, there are no car rentals in towns with populations of 1000 or less. We make it 12 miles past the lunch stop and then flag down a SAG car. I was tempted to ask the driver to take us all the way to Kansas City but I settled for the town of Clyde. The hills are not nearly as steep and there is no wind inside a car. As generous as everyone has been so far, Clyde is the epitome of the gracious host. They rounded up all of the local electric golf carts to ferry us around the town so that we wouldn’t have to get back on our bikes in the evening. Getting a little rest and only 6 hours in the saddle today helped my attitude immensely. Also - we got to see The World’s Biggest Ball of Twine in Cawker City! Woo hoo! (Downs to Clyde-69 miles)
Thursday - the longest day yet. D made the whole distance; M flagged down a ride after 8 hours of pedaling. M got the tent up and the rest of our stuff unpacked and found a nice cold shower for D when she arrived 2.5 hours later. I haven’t mentioned the heat, hills and wind but they’re all still there. There is talk of a storm coming: 60+ mph winds and rain. We hear locals near us say that it’s not a big deal; why should they leave their tents and go inside the gym? We get into our tent and prepare to watch the lightning moving toward us on the horizon. And it’s like the Fourth of July fireworks only wetter and scarier. Oh, and at some point we notice that the locals have all gone inside! The wind is so strong that the tent flattens all the way down on top of our faces and then snaps back into shape when the gust passes. We keep saying that’s what the tent is built to do. By midnight the worst is past and we are so tired, we ignore the howling storm and fall asleep. (Clyde to Centralia-80 miles)
Note from our BAK route book regarding Centralia (pop. 600): Rex Maneval was born here in 1890 and dreamed of becoming a mechanical engineer, but his parents preferred a a business career and enrolled him in a banking school. Among Maneval’s projects was a helicopter which he designed in 1939, the same year Sikorsky designed the VS-300 which eventually became the first successful commercial helicopter. (Maneval was never able to resolve all of his copter’s mechanical problems, like excessive vibration.)
Friday is the section of road that we have all been told has the worst of the hills. Maybe so, but the f***ing wind has eased a bit so the hills don’t seem as bad (or maybe we’re just getting tougher). Rain threatened all day, so it was cooler, too. Like Seattle - if we thought 89 degrees was cool and 20 mph wind was breezy. The folks of Troy went all out for us with food and hospitality. Sort of like the “Bite of Seattle” on a smaller scale, with tractor-pulled hay rides for transportation to and from the town square. We can relax because tomorrow we will ride just a few miles and then enjoy a celebratory pancake breakfast and then get on a bus to Kansas City. The folks here call us “Seattle”. One of the shirts we wear reads “Pike Tandem”. The people all around us are bikers so they think it has something to do with riding a tandem bike up Pike’s Peak. We explain that the t-shirt refers to the Pike Brewery’s Double Ale and yes, we do drink it in tandem. (Centralia to Troy-76 miles)
Saturday starts the usual way, up a hill to get out of town. But wait! After one quick hill, it is all level or DOWNHILL all the way to Elwood! Yippee! We coasted much of the way. We stopped to take pictures, enjoyed the big pancake breakfast and loaded our stuff onto the air-conditioned bus and put our sore bodies on big soft cushioned bus seats.
We got to spend several days exploring Kansas City with our friends Min and Bill. The company and the friends were delightful, as was the hotel bed and the hot shower.
We are glad that we did the BAK. Really. Even if this narrative sounds a tad negative at times. This was truly an adventure, much of it fun, lots and lots of it painful (still). Kansas is a beautiful state and the people we met were incredible. The ride was physically punishing but it’s nice to know that we are healthy and strong enough to do it. I would like to do the route again - BY CAR.
