Day 14 – Thornton, CO to St Francis, KS 194.13 miles

Phase II Denver to Charlotte
So it’s June 21st and I need to be home by July 3rd, a very tall order but doable. I’ll have 13 days to cover around 1600 miles, or at least 123 miles per day. I jettisoned all my heavy clothing, my sleeping pad, and other items to lighten the load. Since I don’t have a scale, I suspect I relieved my bike of around 10 lbs of extra gear.
Ever since Wyoming I’ve had shifting problems, each time it rains it gets worse. The shimano folks from the RTR tour recommended changing the cassette. I bought a new cassette and put on the new chain given to me by the good shimano folks. Brian and I messed with the gearing but it still didn’t work out, I guess I’ll have to limp 1,600 miles back home! Brian thinks it may be the shifter, it seems to have acquired an 11th click. I also bought some Continental touring tires at the RTR Continental booth ($50 each is a good deal) for the road home instead of the racing tires. Brian and I went up Lookout Mountain on Saturday and they seemed to ride through anything, a nice change from the jarring 4000s ($45 at RTR).
I said my goodbyes to the new McManus family and I got a little teary as I left, there were a lot of memories crammed into a short amount of time for them and me as well. Big thanks to them for letting me be the third wheel, I’m sure they’ll be glad for some normalcy soon.
The terrible storms that have pounded the Midwest have since passed, I’ll face very high temperatures all the way to the Appalachians. I had feared getting caught in an infamous Kansas storm, I think I have lucked out this time. I want to be in Kansas by the end of the day, which would be about 187 miles according to Google. Somehow I acquired another 7 miles to make 194. I took 120th out beyond DIA and then down to 88th for a while and then south again to US-36. The wind came from the south so there were some slow miles each time I turned into the wind. When I arrived on US-36 it was a welcome change, and the road was fantastic with wide shoulders and smooth pavement. I saw Porsches pass me intermittently on the highway which puzzled me but I finally found the source out in the middle of nowhere: there was a race (road) track where they were running the course as fast as they could. I think they were time trialing, there weren’t any clear winners.
After the track the road started to crumble and the rollers became steeper and steeper, where were the flatlands? From the air Kansas and East Colorado looks flat…
I happened across another cyclist named Noah who was on his way back home. He had an old RTR jersey on but he did not participate in the ride this year. It was his first attempt to do something like this, I explained to him the importance of chamois butt’r on long rides instead of using Gold Bond powder and how Endurox is quite helpful for recovery. I guess just a short 13 days to Denver had made me somewhat a veteran already. I’m sure I still have a lot to learn though!
It was hot, but at least it wasn’t raining. The wind was coming out of the south so it wasn’t completely at my back however it gave me a little boost. The rollers just wouldn’t stop, I thought I would average 20 mph on the flats but they never came. Instead it was the same 15 mph and I knew I would be ending the day in the dark.
I stopped in Anton at a grocery store just before it closed and bought some Gatorade, M&Ms, Pringles, and a prepackaged ham and cheese sandwich. Gone in no time. I was sitting at a picnic table by the store and shared my space with a local farming family (Horas). They told me about how the government pays them to not work the fields on a rotating basis. They also explained to me why all the towns I passed through seemed to be modern ghost towns with all the motels and restaurant/cafes boarded up. Since there were less fields to work, there were no transient workers around to keep the businesses busy. It was sad to see the towns like Cope Colorado where a once vibrant town now looked like a dilapidated post war East German town.
I caught a flat as the sun went down near Idalia. The front tire masked the flat I think for a few miles before I realized it. A staple had worked its way through the tire but it was a quick fix and a needed rest off the saddle. For all the folks who want to lose weight fast, try James’ workout model: Bike 13 hours in 90+ degree heat and have 2 bowls of cereal in the morning with the above lunch…
In eastern Colorado the sun goes down on the summer solstice at 8:30ish. By then the roads were terrible and I wasn’t excited to dodge potholes in the dark. I pushed through to Kansas in the dark and the roads immediately changed to perfect flat asphalt. It was a smooth ride to St Francis but the twinkling city lights in the distance never seemed to come fast enough. When it’s the only thing I had to look at, and the hills came and went, I was admittedly frustrated.
I arrived at the Dusty Farmer hotel, learned from some of the other guests to ring the doorbell for service, paid my $40, got in the room, and almost immediately fell asleep. The Asian innkeeper kept saying “You’re checking in so late!” It was only 10:30… so I thought. I wouldn’t learn until the next day that I was in Central time. Losing a precious hour again hurts!
In addition to the calories above I had a clif bar, banana, 96 oz of Gatorade, and about 260 oz of water…
Tomorrow I head east again to Phillipsburg, about 150 miles and hopefully with the wind at my back. It’ll be even hotter than today, but at least no rain!