Day 32: the flattest thing in kansas is our tires

Overbrook, KS to Emporia, KS — 62.6 mi, 1608 ft

The answers to my lying blog last week (did you spot them all?)

1. Drew doesn’t snore
2. Nate had exiled himself from the sleeping bag room from the start because he states he needs his alone time or something  
3. They both have healthy relationships and don’t feel the need to stay on call with their girlfriends overnight
4. Never a joyful mood in the mornings
5. Drew did not enjoy his carrots (he doesn’t eat vegetables) and Nunu hardly drank her coffee in fear of needing to poop on the ride and nobody supports my idea of splitting all our coffees round-robin style.
6. Tatiana didn’t stick her mouth on the snow cone machine (although this was the most believable lie, even she forgot if she had actually done this or not)
7. No tarantula on Drew’s face and nobody petted it and he definitely didn’t want to adopt it
8. Neither did Carmen try stealing a butterfly 
9. We sliced the sausage with knives like normal people and put it in our sandwiches
10. We spread guac and hummus on our sandwiches with cheese slices; no fingers were put in the communal spread. But this doesn’t really matter because people’s hands have rummaged in our communal ice bag at least twenty times a day. But this doesn’t really matter because we smash the ice bag against the dirty ground as hard as we can multiple times each rest stop in order to break the ice chunks, and then we put the dirty ice bag into our cooler with all of our food. 
11. Nate could not care less if we rode the carousel, especially if we were riding it together
12. Caroline did not cross the Missouri swimming, nor did she get saved by a beaver (hopefully the lies were obvious by now)
13. Nunu and Tatiana didn’t start running away at the sound of the thunderstorm
14. Nunu didn’t fall through the floorboards of an abandoned hostel building and definitely didn’t pee in it
15. Drew didn’t sneak away to find a cheeseburger in an abandoned ghost town

Note that everything insane I wrote about the 1904 Olympics and World Fair is actually true! I would also like to add an addendum that perhaps my reflection that I’ve started to enjoy biking was an unintentional lie as well because the next few days of biking have been pretty brutal, as you will come to read…

Now to today’s blog. Playing with the format again to keep things interesting. Notice anything special with this one?

As we woke up this morning, I had but one thing on my mind:

BREAKFAST!!! Today we were in for a special treat as our host Scott took us to the retirement community he owns in Overbrook to eat breakfast with the retirees.

Carmen and Caroline, Nate and Nunu, and Tatiana, Drew, and I all dispersed upon arrival to three tables where we got to converse with some of the retirees who were in the cafeteria for breakfast, and got to munch on the best waffles I’ve eaten in a long time, complete with every topping we could ask for (except for our resident plainmaxxer Drew, who only got syrup).

Devouring the waffles, the team all chatted with people about where they were from, who their families were, what their professions were, what’s going on in their lives, etc.etc. Often times I find that we are the ones talking endlessly about ourselves to the people that we meet, launching into our spiel about biking across America and how many days it takes and where we are going next and all the standard questions about our strange logistics, so it was refreshing to hear about the rich and full lives of the people at our breakfast tables. I’m still thinking about how Linda, one of the retirees at our table, said that people forget that they are all not just old people left in here, forget that each and every one of them have lived long and interesting lives in their own right.

Every conversation I’ve had on this trip has felt like I’m diving into a different world that I’m trying to learn as much of as I can, because the world of the people I’m talking to has felt so different than my own. It has made me think a lot about this concept of sonder that has always fascinated me, defined as the realization and understanding that all other people have lives as complex as one’s own. Throughout college, especially because of my close friends like Tatiana, I’ve really grown out of my shell and come to love and appreciate striking conversations with strangers around me. It’s just fun and unserious and a way to spread some love.

Finally we said our goodbyes and headed out on the road just past 10:30 AM, biking along with our awesome host Scott.

Going out the door, we all felt a little sad leaving, as I think a lot of us were thinking about our own parents getting old and how they would want to live. We didn’t have enough time to feel too sad, however, because as soon as we headed out, we heard a

HISSSSSSSSSSSSS……

It was Caroline’s supposedly-repaired tire, puffing out semi-dried sealant. Our third flat in the last 24 hours. Our GOAT host Scott went back to the car with Caroline to switch out her tire with Drew’s (today’s GOAT driver), a feat that took them mere minutes when Drew did it, but had taken Tatiana, Carmen, Nunu, and I half an hour and a lot of painful heel smashing in an attempt to unscrew the axle yesterday.

Just a couple minutes after we headed out again, though, we heard another HISSSSSSS. It was Carmen’s!!! Our fourth flat tire… this could not be real.

Kentucky had its dogs, Missouri had its storms, Virginia had its hills, and I guess Kansas’s new curveball for Spokes 2026 was… flat tires?

Lucky for us, bikes come with not one but TWO tires so Drew’s had another we could switch out, which left his bike looking uncomfortably naked on the bike rack (see below). At this point we had to hug goodbye to Scott, since with our chatty breakfast and two flats, we had probably taken a good hour and a half longer than he had probably expected to be out riding with us. As we waited on the side of the road for the Carmen-Drew handoff to complete, I look down to see MY tire suspiciously bubbling with sealant… no way we were getting a fifth flat.

My solution was to start pedaling furiously to the next rest stop, channeling advice from the all-knowing ever-wise sage Drew that tires need to keep spinning for the sealant to spread from the edges of the tires enough to cover the puncture. My rare lead ahead of the team didn’t last long, however, as I stopped to chat with some bikers heading the opposite direction along the Flint Hills Trail.

Never missing an opportunity to lollygag means never missing out on FREE STUFF!!! It turned out that one of the bikers, Shaun, is the founder of a company called Helmet Flair that specializes in things like horns and cat ear decorations for bicycle helmets, and it turned out that he carries some extras on him to give out to bikers he passes by! 

Of course, we had to get blinged up. Here are some selfies of our new #FIERCE #SLAY #BEASTMODE #UNAPOLOGETIC #STYLEINSPO #GLAMSQUAD team. We kept chatting with Shaun and Jake about the ceramics learning curve and sailboating around the world until we heard a…

POP!!!

Quite unfortunate that we were now at FLAT TIRE NUMBER SIX!! But this time it was Shaun’s!! We were bringing the flat luck wherever we went so we decided to pedal on before we somehow popped Jake’s tire too. The flat luck stuck with us however, because pretty soon after, Carmen’s second tire popped.

Really.

SEVEN flats.

The universe had thus given us a sign to stop in Osage City and sidequest while Drew came back to SAG Carmen to a bike shop at the end of the route, having no more tires to give. Finding that everything downtown was closed, we congregated in a grocery store where we spent an hour roaming joblessly up and down every aisle, looking longingly at all the fruit that seemed too expensive to buy (Nate said something about the dollar-to-calorie ratio), asking each other hypothetical questions on which new snacks we could introduce that the majority of the team would still support (Drew said he doesn’t understand this constant chase for novelty), and knocking over peaches and KIND bars and everything else we touched (Nunu claims the display case itself is unstable). We ended up supporting a long-awaited splurge on fruits, and we had the absolute most delicious feast of oranges, grapes, watermelon, grapefruit cups, and Naked smoothies!!!! It was a glorious break from the Cheez-its and fig bars at gummy worms that we had been stuffing our faces with. We would all highly encourage checking out our donation page if you’re interested in a healthier diet for our team.

Unfortunately, now it was time to start getting serious: somehow we still had 60% of our ride to finish, and it was 4 PM. Now I have nothing more to really say about the next few hours. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, none of us blog about the actual biking portion of our days, because genuinely nothing interesting happens. I tried starting the Heroes of Olympus audiobooks because the original Percy Jackson series was getting boring (they just fight monsters all the time, and it is too clearly written for ten year olds). I adjusted my seat position every 15 seconds because my butt was aching so bad. I called my dad to distract me from the mild hills but instead had to listen to him like a podcast because he couldn’t hear anything I was saying over the crazy strong headwind. 

Very slowly, the hours passed and we reached the 12th Avenue Baptist Church of Emporia. I want to give a HUGE shoutout to Vickie at the Didde Catholic Campus Center who helped us find housing, Pastor Brett for hosting us at the 12th Ave, and Diane and Elaine from Didde who awaited us with a warm and very very delicious meal as we came in!!

We ate, we showered, we blogged, we slept.

eXhausted once again,

Yours truly,

Zarushi