Day 41 - Larned to Ness City

Start time: 05.37
Start location: Larned
Start State: Kansas
Start weather: Dark, warm
Total millage so far: 2068.39


Finish time: 11.01
Finish location: Ness City
Finish State: Kansas
Finish weather: Hot
Miles today: 64.92
Total millage so far: 2133.31
Today's top speed: 45.7!! in Kansas!
Today's average speed: 14.9
Punctures - 1 (slow back wheel)

Music played:
Royksopp - The Understanding
Soul II Soul - Club Classics Vol One
Soul II Soul - Vol. II (1990 - A New Decade)
Soul II Soul - Volume IV - The Classic Singles 88-93
Soundtrack - Colors
Soundtrack - Saturday Night Fever - The Original Movie Soundtrack

Blog for this day:

Ok, today I'm eating blueberry pie with ice cream in Ness City.  Had my shower at the pool and now relaxing.  The temperature here is just crazy still.  So lets check the notes to see what happened!  I left real early again as i wanted to miss as much of the high temperatures as possible.  The sunrise yet again was amazing with lots of cloud today.  The colour given off by it was gorgeous, the golden colours given off by the fields and the green of the grass.  Amazing.  Because of the cloud, I was praying that this would cause a tornado, no joy though :(  It was great having the cloud cover, it kept most of the day cool.  So my daily moan and groan.  WHAT IS UP WITH THESE FRIGGIN' DRIVERS in Kansas?!!!!?!!  There seems to be two types, the first who give you loads of room, driving right over to the other side of the road, slowing down etc.  They are great, then you get the effing idiots who give you barely an inch as they whizz past at 60mph.  I'm not sure I will be allowed to sleep in the church tonight after all the cussing I've shouted out today.  Ublad then myself had one overtake straight towards us, even though if he left it 30seconds longer, he could have had the road to himself for another 30mile.  There were hardly anyone on the road at that time of the morning. Nutters.  Got them all on the GoPro, so if anyone wants to do anything  about them...  On the flip side of the coin, there were the two grumpy and rude self contained guys who were oblivious to the cars trying to overtake,  merrily weaving all over the road causing one car to swerve wide to overtake.  I, and apparently everyone else today, waved and said good-morning but they just kept on cycling.!  Good luck on your ride guys!  *what did I do with my Indian guide to performing a rain dance*

The first part of the morning we had cross winds, which very happily turned into the best kinda tailwinds!!!  Very happy.  I hit 45.7 in Kansas!!!  Kansas being pretty god dam flat as a pancake.  Goes to show how much the wind can slow you or increase your speed.  Later in the day we hit diagonal headwinds again which really slowed us down.  It turns a nice ride into a nightmare as your using so much more power to go nowhere fast.  Our nice cloud cover went about 10am too, leaving the sun to boil out waterbottles dry.

We are halfway through this adventure and one of the worst parts of the trip is going through so many towns real quick.  Even if you have a layover day, you rush around and miss a lot of what is going on, or not in some cases.  I'm worried that when the trip is over, it will all just blend into one huge TransAm mess lol.  Sitting here, outside now as the cafe has closed, I am on a crossroads with combine harvester driving up the road, pick up trucks with people wearing cowboy hats drive by.  A huge grain silo is on my right and a mural depicting the railway coming through town has been painted above yet another closed down shop.  A water tower with "Ness City" written upon it, sits in the distance while the red stop sign blinks, warning a heavy truck from Nebraska that its a 4way.  The nice lady from the cafe I ate in tells me there is wifi at the library a few blocks up.  Yes I will have photo's and video, but soon I will be back on that BA flight to London and work the following day.  It's odd that in London, if I get up early for the gym, around 7am, that I am tired for the rest of the day.  Here, I am up at 4am, cycling 60odd miles in unsafe temperatures, and I'm not as tired. The sad thing is that we all settle right back into our safe routines so quickly.  It has been great to muddle life up like this, throw a "good" spanner in the works as life can become so mundane and predictable.  I do hope that I will have changed for the better after this and I don't let myself slip back into "working 9-5".  Give me a slap and a wake up call if I do.

 Trans Am, car verses bike

 Oh my!

 Didn't have time to visit the rutts in the ground caused by the carts heading west

 Oooo, I was thinking of heading down to see what happens when I turn up again

 Good museum we visited yesterday

 "Here comes the sun"

 Took lots of pics of this

 Welcome to Kansas.  Although top speed today was 45.7!

 Praise the lord

 Railway lines link all this silos together

 Ness City

Day 40 - Sterling to Larned

Start time: 06.12
Start location: Sterling
Start State: Kansas
Start weather: Warm
Total millage so far: 2014.26


Finish time: 11.05
Finish location: Larned
Finish State: Kansas
Finish weather: Hot
Miles today: 54.13
Total millage so far: 2068.39
Today's top speed: 22.9
Today's average speed:  13.5

Music played:
Rob Sykes - Juicy - NYE 2006
Rod Stewart - The Story So Far - The Very Best Of
Royksopp - The Understanding

Blog: 
After not a good nights sleep, I was up at about 5am, awake from around 01.30, for a horrendous 54mile ride in hot, uncompromising temperatures, WITHOUT any services.    Today's music included a Rob Sykes mix which included a lot of the tunes that were played at Fire when we used to go out clubbing, so it brought back lots of great, funny and happy memories of our times there.  We used to go down to Fire near enough every week, sometimes all weekend.  We had lots of great times and some great memories, Morgan, Tony and myself all dancing away all night long till 7am.  We used to get there around 1am and make the club ours.  I guess I'm pretty limited to what I can say we got up to on here, but they were great!  The music and lights would bring you up and down, you would meet lots of different people each week, and of course, there were the usual faces too.  Before I settled down I was getting into clubbing in Europe and bumped in to three guys in Berghain just by chance.  So yes, the music brought it all back, and the sad times too, what with seeing your best friend die of cancer in front of you over 18months.  Not been back to Fire since.


The road surfaces were pretty dire to say the least, they kept my speed down to around 15mph then I hit the headwinds which grew stronger throughout the day!   This has to be one of the worst, hardest, hellish days of all if I am honest.  You could not get any speed up at all, the winds must have been 10-20mph as my speed was down to around 10mph, this sucked big time.  There was also a really bad smell most of the day, this was from the oil pumps scattered around in the fields.  It was like a mathane and oily smell, not nice.  So yesterday was the hottest day here, anywhere in the world at this time, crazy.  Even though we started early, the heat was unbearable.  Near the end at the ride, I was stopping every few miles just to rest, as well as pouring water over every part of my body I could.  Oh, really bad van driver who I swore at for driving way to close, w@nker. 


After passing the beef feeding lots, which also stank, I got into town.  We were recommended to go into a place to drink called Scrapes.  I think I would take off the S if you know what I mean!  I had to wait about 5mins which the counter girl finished her gossip conversation off.  You can imagine how someone who had just cycled 50odd miles at 10mph in oven temperatures, would be feeling.  I was just about to walk out the door when I finally got served.  Although they were polite and nice, I don't think the $4-$5 "smoothie" i was expecting was worth that much money.  It was just a slush-puppy type thing.  I was wanting real fruit.  Polite but crap, sorry, well, no, I ain't sorry.  I'm hot, tired, thirsty.  Sort it out!  


After a little siesta, we went to the pool for a shower then down to the fort!:
http://www.nps.gov/fols/index.htm


It was pretty good, dam hot though as it was in the heat of the afternoon.  Interesting stuff to see there, I was interested in the books, but they were way too detailed.  I wanted to find out about the Indians, Custer, Buffalo Bill etc, but it was way too heavy. Shame.  I guess I will make it all up :) The site was interesting and would recommend it.  The Indians got a really raw deal, sucks big time what happened to them, and you see it still happening with this country!   I was hoping to see some rattlesnakes as in the warning pics, but all I saw were 3 turkeys.  The land was barran, just nothing!  flat and plain!  On leaving the temperature was up to 108degrees.  We also passed a prison!  It's a bit off the route, but would be fun to pop in and see what it going on :)

 Early morning and the crops are being sprayed.  No water shortages here like back home

 The Indians have finally found me, about to be scalped!

 What kinda snake is it, and is it dead?

 Yes, I will watch for ice today

 Smelly oil pumps

 Boring

 Nice to stand in the spray as it crossed into the road

 Cattle ready to be packed off and chopped up!

 Shooting the redskins

 Could happily sleep here

 Our new digs!

 The cooler

 Caught at last, the last of the pesky English

 Paint your wagon

 Hmm errr, I wonder how many soldiers it took to make this?!

at 4.15pm

Day 39 - Sterling, Day off

Day off in Stirling, nice little town.

Had a lay in.
Warm
Had breakfast
Hot
Went to post office to collect and post
Hotter
Lunch
Even hotter
Pool
Baking
Making scones
Crazy
Laundry
Super melting hot
Pizza & Bed

 Staying on campus

 Lazy paperboy

Not much for kids to do, maybe take up a hobby, like Meth?

 Fat guy in the background.  Gina was still hungry

Burning the year book?