Day 13...Dodge City to Great Bend in 93 miles, so a pretty short day. At last we're in Dorothy's Kansas! The Econ-ology (made up word) of Kansas has changed significantly. In Dodge City and south, the economics of livestock is obviously better than pure grain farming. I'm guessing that cows don't need rich land to have something to eat on and the grains need so much help to grow down there (irrigation) that cows/pigs look better than grain. With that comes the trucks, trains, feedlots, scars, smells, rendering plants, waste treatment and so on. And, since you can "harvest" a cow or pig anytime, they're always busy. One plant in Dodge City alone slaughters 6000 cattle a day. As we've moved north east (on the Santa Fe Trail, btw), everything's different again. The fields are purely grain now...the soil obviously rich, very productive, and not nearly so dry, so suddenly things really smell good...very sweet and grasslike. (I never thought I'd crave humidity, but it felt great!) With this new econ-ology comes a slower pace...grain is harvested during what must be a hectic time, but right now, it's just doing it's photosynthesis magic while growing in the sun. A real "bread and breakfast" sort of place. What a difference a 100 miles makes. These huge fields actually show wind ripples just like you might see while sailing on a lake or ocean. And there is some real wind too, which fortunately was at our back again. Fantastic all the way around. I got an mpeg of the "waves of grain" and if I get access to a broadband connection I'll put it up. Around here, if you want to see a neighbor, they're probably 5 miles away.

Ray and I rode together most of today. It was a nice relaxing ride, though we probably averaged 20 or so. We have a longer ride tomorrow, so we'll all be pretty fresh for it. We took a detour from the set route to see Fort Larned, one of the famous (around here) forts in the battle with the Native Americans. It's a weird history, really, and interesting to see the KS take on this. They did have a field surgery kit that might have helped us with John's injury, though he's probably better off back in Boston.

One other thing...I can't say enough about the people supporting us on this trip. Endlessly cheerful, helpful, hardworking, and they really know their stuff. That's Mike, Barbara, Karen, and Josh.

Tomorrow is on to Abeline...a much smaller dot on the KS map than Great Bend. It should be great.

Here are some grain field photos and one of many "plants" down near Dodge City. (5/11/04: added mpeg of wind)



See also: Wind on the wheat
- posted by Tom @ 1:32 PM

 
Day 12...Liberal KS to Dodge City KS. Only 82 miles today. I guess that there are often headwinds in Kansas and these 82 can be hard. We had a tail wind still, so it was a breeze. There's plenty of time for our weather luck to change, so we will take it when we get still another good break. Now this is certainly flat the whole way along here. And farm land...that's for sure. But oddly, it doesn't have that rural Vermont feel and it's not Dorothy's Kansas farm we're looking at from the Wizard of Oz...these farms are big and everything about and around them is also big. Fields are big, silos are big, trains are long and everywhere, trucks big and heavy and lots of them, sprinklers are big with big pumps working away. So, it's plenty rural, but somehow seems very industrial. One of the funny things is that you might have a completely grey, burned out field right next to a green field. Turns out, the burned out gray ones haven't been planted yet. The last crop is cut/harvested down to about 6 or 7 inches and then it's plowed under when the next crop is planted. So to our clearly untrained eye, it looks like one field is completely burned out and the next going great. This store owner also told me that the big silo co-op's are owned by almost everyone in a town. In the case of Minneola, that would be about 700 people. They build these things with bank $ and pay a monthly fee to the co-op. He did say, when I asked if it was kind of dry around here..."Yep, going on three years" so I guess things aren't great that way. Now the town's themselves...the retail places, that is...don't look like they're doing much. I wonder if the internet is just killing them for most "variety" things. You can go online from Dodge City or anywhere in between pretty easily.

John headed back to Boston at 5 this am...by cab to get a flight from Liberal Kansas. I'm sure the surgery to clean it out would be better done in Boston...hopefully the same can't be said for flying too. Ray and I coasted through this thing since we still had a tail wind. I guess there's often a headwind around here and that makes things tough. There is a *lot* of wind and today it was our friend again. Had a great time while hardly breaking a sweat...except that it was very hot. We're going to forget how to work hard if things keep up like this, but I'm sure we'll have our work cut out for us shortly. It's been lucky, though, for many since there's been a really nasty intestinal bug going around. Hits fast...cleans everyone out completely...takes a day for the worst to be over, and then things are pretty good the next day and fine the following. Ray had a "1-point of exit" version yesterday instead of the 2 point plan. I'm waiting my turn...

Here's a photo of "amber waves of grain" that's still spring green, then the reality...road with truck, rail, wires, and silo in the distance, a retail center in Meade KS, some of our new friends at the Dalton Gang hideout. I can probably put these photos up for tomorrow too...we'll see, it should be great.


- posted by Tom @ 2:14 PM

 
This just in. John's elbow is worse than we thought. They have found stones up inside the wound and will need to open it up to clean it out. He'll be leaving the trip...We all feel awful and I'm sure he'd appreciate your good wishes. So sorry...So sorry.

Also, see the new photo of Ray's roadkill below.
- posted by Tom @ 2:27 PM

 
Day 11....Dalhart TX to Liberal KS via OK. First, see the update on Day 10...I am now able to update for John's crash yesterday and let you all know what happened.

Back to today...now talking about a tough place to live. First, there is a train every 30 minutes all night long and the motel was right by the tracks...as is everything in this part of the world. They blow the whistles for every crossing and there was one right by our place....every thirty minutes and I mean loud. Even I could hear them all night but most could not sleep through them. So...get up and head out the door and find the wind is straight off the feedlots. Now, if you've ever smelled cow dung...multiply that by several hundred, double that and you've got the situation. It was just amazing. Boy, we couldn't wait to head out. It struck me how so many of the jobs associated with the meat business are ones that none of us would aspire to...and wondering about the time when no one does. I guess you kind of get stuck in them and can't escape for whatever reason.

Now this was a fast ride. 113 miles with a total elevation drop of 1000 feet and our friendly tail wind kicking in at 25 mph. There were times when we'd be going 30 and our heart rate would be 100 bpm. This place is dominated by the rail system...everything is built along side of it. Very regular...towns every 10 miles because that's where the rail companies put their stops (amazing, really, how they've shaped this place). Near the livestock sites there would be a bunch of grain silo structures connected with a lattice of conveyors. Not particularly pretty. There are plenty of scars from this sort of work. Corrugated houses and buildings and the trucks are big and heavy. We all realized how little we know about farming and all these things since we couldn't say if the fields were wheat or alfalfa or oats or just grass. I suppose the plants were pretty young, so we couldn't really tell that much any way, but... And these fields are very water supplement dependent. The irrigation systems are huge sprinklers that stretch for several hundred yards and walk a path around a field spraying the plants. There were big water pumps with diesels running to keep the water pushed through. As we got into OK, things were still livestock oriented but as we hit Kansas, things turned to plant agriculture it seemed. The fields were more picturesque with the traditional look to the farm houses. They're big and open and flat though, so it's not like Vermont.

We got to talking to a couple of Highway workers at a convenience store. Lived here forever. "I went to San Francisco once. I guess it's OK if you get used to it, but I couldn't wait to get back and kiss the ground here in OK." "You're going to Kansas...my parents live in Kansas." "Do for fun? "Ummm...Ummmm...not much really, we all work on the side too. I do carpentry work. There's not much fishing around here anyway." You get the idea. So what was that brown stuff they were spraying on the side of the road. "Oh, that's from the hog plant...we're trying to get the grass to grow better on the side of the highway." You get the idea again.

Ray had the time of his life. "Can you believe it. Wait till Walter hears I'm going 30 down these roads and not even working!" "It doesn't get any better than this." "I'm glad I can say I've never been here before, but it is pretty." It was an honestly easy ride, I'd concur and great fun. Now John...well, his elbow injury was sore this morning. He also has some swelling in his leg, but nothing bad. He had trouble holding the handlebars with their vibration and is having trouble putting weight on it, so he rode in the van after about 15 miles. We're really hoping and praying this thing will settle down soon enough.

Here's a grain silo at the rail stop. Then a nice looking herd of horses in a field. Finally we're in Kansas...it's very different, no? John's elbow bleeding thru the bandage.






Also, this just in...Ray hits a cow on the road...bad for the cow.


- posted by Tom @ 2:24 PM

 
Day 10...Tucumcari to Dalhart, TX...96 miles. Another light day on the road. With the right wind, you could very well do a sub 4 hour century on this ride. As it was, without going crazy I averaged 21.6 and did the last 33 miles solo, just for the heck of it. At any rate, it was a light day. The landscape changed again a little. The high plains are pretty "scruffy"...not nearly as pretty as the grass lands of NM yesterday. It's very dry this year out here and things are very dry, for sure. Gray is the most prevalent color. This is cattle country, but it must take a tremendous amount of land to graze anything because we hardly saw any cattle when we scanned the horizon. As we got closer to Dalhart, we passed a giant feed lot...where everyone brings their cattle for the final stages of fattening them up for slaughter. These feed lots are amazing...each four or five cattle are in "cubicles" kind of and there are lots of them! They're just sitting and getting fed by a huge bunch of machines and conveyors...big grain bins and serviced by the rail that runs down the whole highway. Most of the trains are carrying what look to be grain cars, presumably for the feed lot business. So far, that's Texas and just about all we'll see. We're just slicing across the smallest little part of the corner and traversing OK in less than a day in to Kansas.

John had a great morning and was smoking at about 23+ for the first 66 miles. Haven't seen him since then, but he was working hard. His bronchitis is still with him and our new friend Jon Webster from LA sent a tip for how to get rid of it. Apparently it's pretty common around here, so we're going to be looking for vaporizers tonight with the hope that John can get a good night's sleep. Ray had a great day too. We're about to have a "drive train" clinic and Mike asked if I'd be responsible for getting Ray there. They already know him well. He's working hard on his bike too...changed a tire last night and still was flatted before we left. He's riding great, despite the aggravation of flats...so he's feeling good. I had an easy day which is good. Slept right to the alarm this am, so I know I'm tired.

And, a special thanks to HMC for sending some serious sun screen, hydrocortisone, getting a camera sent out here, and....vodka!!! (thanks Tielman)

So...off to Kansas...should be great. Some of those rides look to be so flat that I'm sure a concrete slab wouldn't be any flatter. So, till then.

PS: John's crash. Sorry to not be able to put anything up last night, but it wouldn't be appropriate for John's family to hear he crashed on my blog. Just after the lunch stop, we were beginning to head out. John had really been cooking with Mike and a small group...averaging some 23 mph. We were just forming a pace line about a mile or so out and John was second and I'm third in the line. Jari called "gravel" and I mean there was gravel. It was pushed to the shoulder from when they put down loose stone or something to maintain the road. The gravel was three or four feet wide and deep on the inside and outside with a small path through the middle. John went to the outside at the call...not much time to react...and I went inside towards the middle. The gravel just grabbed John's wheel and he started to whip saw and went down. His bike is OK...but he cut his elbow on some of the stones. Different than a road rash and definitely worse. Not awful in the sense that it's a huge deal as an injury...but a huge deal in that we're in the middle of a long ride and it will be sore at best and unmanageable at worst. I'll let John give whatever details he feels is appropriate, but we're all really rooting for the "sore at best."

Here's a few of the high plains of NM/TX and then the feedlot.

- posted by Tom @ 2:53 PM

 
Day 9...Las Vegas to Tucumcari, NM. What an amazing ride. First, it's a "mere" 110 miles, and we started out very early so that we could get in early. That extra time is very welcome for rest and recovery and it meant everyone could just relax and not worry about pace. As we headed out of Las Vegas, we turned east and within 2 miles we were in a vast (I've used that word a lot, I know) rolling ocean of grassland for as far as you could see. The pines and silver bushes and mesas and hills were in the distance behind us and we were in a completely different space. Nothing but a beautiful, huge grazing range for miles and miles. An occasional house with a small stand of trees around it...perhaps every 5 miles or so. Very few animals to see either, actually and one line of telephone poles with only two wires threading down the road. One painted indian pony ran along side of us for awhile (on the other side of the fence) and when he got to the gate, he stopped and looked at us as if fully expecting we'd let him out. A windmill of two off in the distance for pumping water I'm sure. What a start. Then at about 33 miles this giant plateau ends and the road drops 1000+ feet in a few miles. What a downhill! Hit 46+ on the road which cut down the side of the mesa to the valley below. Things are getting greener, there are fields of wild flowers and it actually smells like something other than dry dust and heat. It was stunning. After about 50 miles the rest of the way to Tucumcari was more like yesterday, pines and mesas with rolling hills but mostly downhill. It was an absolutely beautiful.

John rode by himself today and I've not heard much about his bronchitis. (Edit: it's doing just OK...John's hanging in there. It's getting less dry and dusty every day, so there's hope.) Ray mixed it up with plenty of groups but mostly had a good time riding by himself and took tons of photos. "I could look around and not focus on hanging on to the wheel in front of me." and "This is payback for the first 8 days of work." This whole group really loves Ray. I rode with the group I rode with yesterday and we just spun the whole way. The achilles seems to be under control with ice, advil, and toe down riding. Since we all got in early so we may even fit in two dinners tonight.

Tomorrow we end up in Texas...another short ride of about 100. We need a few short, early days as the wear and tear is adding up. Should be great.

Here's a photo of the high prarie, the valley on the descent, and at the 1000 mile mark!


- posted by Tom @ 5:43 PM

 
Day 8...Albuquerque to Las Vegas, NM...135 miles. Now it may not sound like the most beautiful ride you can imagine, but it was. Northern New Mexico is very pretty. It's getting less arid and things are much greener. There are pine trees...not one on the other, but apart and about 10 feet high. There are also these beautiful silver bushes all around and between pine trees and all of this is set in rolling hills with snow capped peaks in the distance. NM 14 is remarkably scenic...two lanes, beautiful shoulder (most of the time), winding all around and not many cars either. So...add a tail wind and 50 degrees warming to 75 with clear skys and sun, and you get the picture. I think this was my favorite to date, though Sedona and Cottonwood were pretty up there. Not a piece of cake, by any means...did I mention that we started the day at about 5000 feet, climbed to 7200 back to 5600, then peaked at 8100 and are spending the night at 6400 feet.

The HPG rode as the H & P & G today. John had a rough night with his bronchitis cough and didn't sleep well. He rode a lot of the route by himself. Haven't heard how it went, but at the SAG stops it seemed to be going well. He's ready to try anything to shake the cough. Vics Vaporub may be the order of the night. Since there was A LOT of climbing, Ray was riding with another group. Haven't seen him right yet, but know he'll be in soon since everyone has cleared the last SAG stop. His back has been sore and he's got his zapper turned up to 14 or so. I'll edit tonight when I know more. I rode with a great group and we just kept a strong pace throughout. Did one mile pulls with about 8 people, so it really worked well. I've discovered that an achilles can be managed better if you ride a little more "toe down" so I think I've got that part under control. I suppose Advil and ice can get some credit, but that kept it at bay for this ride.

Everyone has developed a real routine. Get to the room...take things out of your pockets and put them on a table exactly the same way each day along with helmet, glasses, gloves, shoes. Drink Endurox. Shower. Wash clothes. Wash bottles and Camel back (Use efferdent every other day to clean them out) Check the board for orientation and mechanics time. Figure out dinner. Clean your bike. Drink water like crazy. Take out all your stuff for the next day and line it up exactly the same way (sun block, drink mix). By now it's after 9 and wake up is probably 4:30...so time for bed...but use a wet wash cloth over your face. When you get up...you just insert yourself into your things...hit the sun block and go to breakfast.

Well, that's 400 miles in 3 days and we're cruising. What a beautiful day and more on the way.
- posted by Tom @ 5:21 PM

 
Day 7...Gallup NM to Albuquerque in 147 miles. Surprisingly this wasn't as hard a ride as yesterday's for some reason. We had a head wind for part of the way and were on the bike a long time, but somehow it wasn't a killer. New Mexico is vast and beautiful...though very different looking than AZ and certainly CA. The terrain is rolling and desert like. The horizon filled with mountains of some sort, often just jumping up. There were a series of rock formations, each a mile long or so and hundreds of feet tall that looked like a series of pushed over dominoes. Then things changed for a bunch of miles as we went through a huge lava field. Things were black and pushed around. Then back to the "usual" desert. This is a pretty poor part of the US and a lot of the houses are a trailer with 10 or so cars in various states of being scavanged for parts. One of our rest stops was in Milan where the gas station "travel center" actually had Krispy Kreme donuts! Imagine that, in the middle of the northern NM desert. We had our first run in with a dog today. It wasn't pretty, but we made it without incident. I'm sure there will be more.

One of the interesting things is that the fitness part of this riding is not nearly as complicated as the repetitive motion types or time on the bike types of injuries. Saddle sores, achilles tendons, backs, and even bronchitis from breathing all the dry and dusty air. Our group has all of these things, but you work around it the best you can.

Ray was struggling today...his back is killing him. John continues to have a bronchitis cough. My achilles has started to get sore...something that's never happened before. All in all, a great day though. 147 and we hardly blinked...and that after a week of this long riding.

Here's Ray and a few New Mexico scenes.




- posted by Tom @ 8:00 PM