June 11, 2021
Day 30 - Springfield, MO to almost Pittsburgh, KS
Genetically modified corn
It was forcasted to be 91 today so we made a plan to wake up at 530. We got out of the room by 7, but we're hung up talking to loads of bikers that had shown up for the free hotel breakfast. No matter, we were on the road soon and sweating immediately. We made it out of Springfield and onto a long bike path that took us almost to ash Grove, but just before getting off the path, I noticed my rear tire was pretty flat.
I found a chunk of glass stuck in it and decided to go ahead and replace the tube while we were in the shade. I put in a used, but patched tube I brought but only a few miles down the road it blew out quickly so I pulled over. The only shade we could find was in someone's driveway, so we went there. Mark was a bit ahead of us, so he kept going. We texted him what happened and proceeded to change the tube again. It blew out where the patch was, which was near where the glass had been, but we couldn't find anything pokey in there. I put Mary's spare tube (new) in and it seemed to hold. The owner of the house we stopped at came out with a cold water which made everything better. I could hardly see from sweat. We were about 20 miles from our target city -golden city- and caught up to mark as he was leaving a church. It was super hot and we had a couple climbs that left us almost in heat stroke. The most notable being turnback creek. Finally, Mark's gps said we had climbed the last hill of the section, which I didn't know was a thing since Mary and I only had paper maps. The terrain was quickly becoming farmland only and windy with the lack of trees. Luckily it was wind from the south west, so it wasn't head on. The last 5 miles to golden city was north so we had an amazing tail wind to push us into town. We stopped at a famous pie places called cookies cafe and had some good southern food, but no pie. The login for the wifi was "TrumpPence2020", which was definitely a flex since they put it in the bicylist login notebook. We also saw Conner (another tourist from before) at the cafe, he was heading to Pittsburgh, KS tonight. At this point it was only 2 and we had hatched a plan to sleep indoors tonight, but would have to do another 57 miles to get to a church hostel in Kansas. Our plan was inspired by the transam race where they nap for a few hours and do another riding session. This would also put us at a respectable 115 total miles.
We decided to go to the park in golden to shower and nap while the heat subsided and hit up a nighttime ride. Unfortunately once we layed down, a group of teens came to play basketball in the adjacent shelter. I put ear plugs in, but couldn't drown it out enough. It was still hot too, so I was sweating. I think I slept a little bit though. We ate some food and left around 5. Somehow the winds had changed and were enjoying a generous tailwind. Mark had checked the radar and it showed the possibility of a thunderstorm but we pressed on. As we got closer to Pittsburgh though, the storm came into view. We could see lightning to our right and a cell of rain on the left. Eventually we caught mark and decided to take shelter in a large barn storing tractors.
Luckily we did because the started immediately and got pretty heavy.
It was 730 and we started making back up plans in case we couldn't make it to the church of the rain lasted a while. The rains stopped around 830 and Mary went over to the house to ask if we could camp under their barn. The owners were really nice and had a house on the property that they moved out of. They let us sleep inside. It had a cold shower and toilet and a place to sleep. It was a bit moldy smelling, but it was nice to avoid the wetness. In an effort to avoid walking in puddles to get to the house, I clipped in and tried to ride through the mud. I shifted to the small chainring and dropped the chain. I fell right over on my right side in a big slop of water. At least it didn't hurt at all since it was water logged grass. We all slept ok since it was hot in the house, but resolved to wake up early and head out. We were only a few miles to Kansas. We didn't get our big mileage day, but at least we didn't get soaked.
Mileage:86
Altitude gain:?
Today's ride: 86 miles (138 km)
Total: 1,560 miles (2,511 km)
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