Denver, CO to Idaho Springs, CO — 45.8 mi, 4612 ft
After a few days of beating around the bush, it finally came time to face the rockies head on, resulting in an elevation graph that looks very much like the notorious final obstacle from the TV Series, American Ninja Warrior.
But, before that, we biked out of Denver and into Golden, Colorado. I’d never heard of golden, but it holds a lot of sentimental value to native Denverites, like Nate. This seems to be due to the presence of Woody’s pizza, which is known for its $18.99 all-you-can-eat pizza buffet– a deal that seems too good to be true in the Big 26. The original rest stop was a coffee shop, so Nate and I made the executive decision to move it to Woody’s Pizza (notably after I was scammed for an $8 lemonade in a mason jar by the original coffee shop rest stop). We went to Woody’s, and I just got an order of fried pickles. Nate, on the other hand, dove head first into the all-you-can-eat buffet. I lost count of the number of slices he ate, but I do recall that he had a very diverse selection of different types of pizza, including one with pineapple.
Afterwords, we went down to clear creek, which ran down the northern edge of town. There were a bunch of people tubing down the light rapids.
We had the bright idea to go down the rapids in our “floating dock” as it is branded. It’s basically a glorified air mattress with just enough room for all of us to sit. We ended up going down the river three times as people watched in awe and confusion as we sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully slid down small waterfalls on our “floaty.”
Afterwards, we changed back into our biking gear and started on the largest climb of the trip so far: 2,000 feet over 10 miles. It wasn’t as bad as we thought.
View from the top
At the top, we met this other cyclist who told us there were bison in a nearby meadow. Nate and I biked to the meadow, but we didn’t see any bison.
I’ve noticed that climbs in the Rockies are usually in the format of a long uphill followed by a long downhill. In the Appalachians, it’s a lot of repetitive up, down, up, down– usually shorter, steeper climbs with shorter downhills. I much prefer the format of climbs in the Rockies, because the climbs are rewarded with long downhills where you can effectively cash out on your hard work. In Appalachia, you are constantly just moving on to the next climb without much reward, and it’s a lot more exhausting. However, the elevation can really get to you when you make it to the top of climbs in the Rockies; I think most of us have found ourselves a lot more winded, even nauseated at times.
After our climb, we had a nice descent (mostly) into Idaho Springs. We went through some roads that were closed for construction, but the workers were chill and we kept pressing forward. By the time we got to the place where we were staying, I was really feeling sick, so I ate the delicious pasta prepared by Aarushi and Nunu, then went to sleep immediately. My day ended there. Since I’ve chosen to write this blog in 1st person limited perspective, I can only say that it seems possible that my teammates took advantage of a hot tub at the place we were staying, because I saw bathing suits hanging up to dry in the morning.
Today was just a warmup for The Big Day. The Continental Divide is now staring us straight in the eye. I think my biggest worry, as a sea level dweller, is altitude sickness. Find out how it goes in two days!
Colorado Springs, CO to Denver, CO — 82.5 mi, 3707 ft
Today I woke up feeling a little scared. We’d been anticipating the Rocky Mountains the whole summer and we were finally surrounded by them.
After a little bit of dilly dallying in bed, I went upstairs to retrieve my dried laundry so I could change into my bib shorts and jersey but when I got there and stuck my hand inside, the laundry was still damp. Carmen and I decided to spin it for a bit more and instead repack the car with all our many many things. It’s funny now 42 days in, we’ve unpacked and repacked the car probably 42 times so we know the exact place that every single item should go so that everything can fit neatly and our driver can still see out their rearview mirror. Packing the car is literally a jigsaw puzzle that we’ve mastered. For example, Carmen’s silver hardshell suitcase goes on the rightmost seat of the middle row and our cooler goes right on top, Caroline’s black softshell suitcase goes sideways in the middle seat of the middle row with the seat folded down, and our snack box goes in the leftmost seat of the middle row. It’s all very satisfying to think about.
Still waiting for our laundry to dry, we sat down for one last breakfast and homecooked meal by Aarushi’s family. It consisted of delicious mango shakes with mangoes brought all the way from California, poha, halwa, omelets, toast, the largest cinnamon rolls you’ll ever see brought by Tatiana’s grandparents, and more.
Nate and Erica (Nate’s girlfriend who was visiting) showed up a bit later and we finished up breakfast at the most packed dining table of the whole trip with a total of 13 people, almost double the usual size of the team.
Soon after, we headed out and as Nate was driving today, Aarushi’s dad, uncle Sandeep, used Nate’s bike to join us on our route. Honestly, none of us including Aarushi knew what to expect of this because although we’d become used to this mileage, it’s not usually possible for anyone to just grind out like 80 miles.
At last, after many photos being taken by every single family member and visiting loved one, we began our ride! Until 1.5 miles later we stopped at a neighborhood lemonade stand. We each bought one or two frozen lemonades for $1 and they were amazing.
After scarfing down this lemonade, we continued our ride and very quickly I was stunned—it was so pretty.
A couple days prior, in anticipation of Aarushi’s family visiting, I was telling the team about how the first time I met Aarushi’s parents and brother, I noticed they all walk in the exact same way. It’s really funny that you can get to know someone so well down to the way they walk and then realize that it just came from their family. As we kept biking as a group, Caroline Carmen and I noticed that Aarushi’s dad and Aarushi also bike in the exact same way! The same cadence, same posture, same side-to-side sway. We all smiled and laughed at this.
The first few miles were on busy main roads going out of Colorado Springs which I would usually not enjoy but it was hard to be too upset because the views were seriously impressive. I remember it wasn’t even a couple days ago that the mountains looked like tiny specks in the distance and now I could see all the ridges and trees. Surprise surprise, it only got better from there.
All I was thinking about for this first bit of the ride was how insane people just live here and can casually walk outside their homes to such insane views.
We reached the first rest stop and the first thing I saw was a volleyball net!!!! Then a little further in the clearing of the lake I saw dozens of people swimming and floating!!!!! I told the team that we need to swim and play volleyball. Unfortunately, since we still had a somewhat long day ahead of us, I was left with blank stares. Nate had also initially parked a bit far from the nice shaded picnic benches so I called him to park closer so we wouldn’t have to carry the cooler and snacks so far. I went to find the only empty closer spot and stood there with my bike. Multiple cars drove by and told me to move but I shamelessly (actually very shamefully) stood my ground.
Soon, all 13 of us were gathered under this pavilion eating as many snacks as possible. Tatiana’s grandparents brought us like three gallons of iced tea and Erica brought like 5 bags of dried mango and granola. We are very spoiled.
Aarushi’s dad was the one to finally get us going again because (as we quickly realized) he’s more locked in than anyone on the team. In this second leg, we ended up doing some mountain biking! Caroline and I were biking behind Drew and Carmen (the two mountain bikers) and followed their lead going up and down these little dirt trails. At first, I was feeling too scared to properly enjoy the thrill of the ride. After each mountain biking segment, Drew and Carmen would ask, “did you have fun?” To which I would firmly respond “no” but that firmness slowly dwindled as I began to see the fun in it. It was kind of like a rollercoaster but your fate is in your own hands rather than in the hands of the rollercoaster mechanics.
The trail went on and on through the hills and beautiful vast meadows. After each turn there was a new surprise that was both scary and fun once you’d successfully maneuvered through it. Eventually, Caroline and I fell behind Drew and Carmen as we approached obstacles more hesitantly and slowly. So as we navigated the trail, we reached a fork in the road and I went the wrong way but quickly realized my mistake. I turned around and told Caroline to go the other way but it was too late. She was barreling downhill toward me and couldn’t brake since this specific part of the trail was covered with sand and there was zero traction. It was straight out of a tom and jerry episode, I was screaming at Caroline STAHPPPP and Caroline was like AHHHHHH I CAN’T STOP. But it was fine we somehow managed not to collide and turn around to go the right way. Our next surprise, a pasture of cows! Instead of explaining just how fun this experience was, I’ll just insert this video here.
After biking a bit through the cows, while simultaneously mooing at them and trying not to slip and fall in the sand, Caroline and I are startled by a loud mooOOAAAAAAAAAUUUH. I almost fall off my bike as we turn around and see Drew and Carmen racing toward us from behind. Turns out they made the same wrong turn at the fork in the road and ended up behind us.
The four of us finish up the mountain biking portion together, every once in a while I scream aloud as I try not to swerve off the trail and all I hear is Carmen snickering at me from behind…
Closer to our second rest stop, we pass by a Safeway and Caroline and I celebrate with each other because we both know that means we are officially on the west coast best coast. Our second rest stop was meant to be at a boba shop but we arrived 7 minutes too late. Despite my peering through the locked glass doors longingly, we were not allowed in by the employees. We ended up going to a tea shop down the street called Teaology which was, as Drew likes to say, the most “liberal” cafe there ever was. To paint the picture some more, I got a jasmine sparkling elderflower refresher, Caroline got a watermelon matcha, and we split with Carmen a spinach and sun dried tomato muffin and an earl grey blueberry muffin with lavender icing.
After a much too long lunch break at this cafe and Aarushi’s dad having to usher us to get moving again, we continued on. This next leg had basically the only serious climb of the whole day. Right before the climb started I began to feel rain drops on my face and looked up at the sky to see where the clouds had come from. When I looked up however, there were no clouds. The rain drops was actually my front tire sealant spraying up at me because I had gotten my first puncture. Usually when this happens, the solution is to keep biking so the sealant can dry up and close the puncture (kind of like how skin scabs when you get a cut). So I kept on biking up this mountain. As we huffed and puffed up this hill, Aarushi’s dad mogged everyone and left us all in the dust. It was actually crazy.
Our last rest stop was at Aarushi’s family friend’s house, Abhijeet and [INSERT name]. They made us some delicious protein smoothies and we shared stories about our journey so far. Before long we had to keep biking so we wouldn’t be stuck biking in the dark.
As we got closer into the city and to our host’s house, we biked through many various parks and neighborhoods and wow I just fell in love with Denver. Every park was so beautiful and full of people enjoying being outside. There was also so much biking infrastructure everywhere, I think more than I’ve seen in any city ever. I daydreamed about moving to Denver and biking this same route every weekend because it was just the most awesome day ever.
Half a mile from our destination however, a driver coming the opposite way down a narrow street yells out to me, “GET THE F*** OUT OF MY WAY YOU GODD*MN F***ING IDIOT.” I held my composure and kept biking but that was definitely a negative point for Denver.
At our host’s, Kate and Manuel’s house, we are welcomed by the crunchiest, coldest, most refreshing grapes I’ve ever eaten and my favorite food ever, pesto pasta. Both of them are MIT alum and one Spokes alum so we debriefed our time at MIT/spokes. We then discussed the logistics of tomorrow for a bit. It was decided that I would take Aarushi’s driver day so she could take my bike, her bike, and Caroline’s tire (which was also struggling today) to Trek to get repaired. We then showered and went to bed. All in all it was the perfect day and, all of us agreed, our favorite route of the trip thus far.
Fowler, CO to Colorado Springs, CO — 87.4 mi, 3174 ft
💤 The night before a century is a tense one. Even if we have 95 mile days, nothing quite gets you as excited or as anticipatory as the big scary triple digit number. Thus, we agreed to enforce our strict wake-up routine that worked extremely well for our first century back in Missouri — wake up at 6 and leave by 7 to conquer the day.
🐐 However, you might have noticed that the first line says 87 miles, not 100! That’s because we woke up to find out that Aarushi, our route queen, was able to shave off several miles with some magic and work into the night. The news worked slowly from person to person, as it usually does, and as each person was informed of our shortened route, the urgency in which we got ready slowly dwindled. Usually I am all for full urgency, but we were able to enjoy our morning a bit more and savor the breakfast the church had generously provided us. Notably, the new Arizona Iced Teas that are my new favorite drink. Thanks Aarushi for sacrificing some sleep to make the rest of our lives a bit easier 🙂
🌵 We set off from the church at around 7:30 am, and hit a pretty desolate stretch of highway surrounded by arid prairies and shortgrass growth, which is also where we started seeing more and more cacti. I had the feeling of being home once again. While I’m not necessarily from an area that looks like this in California, seeing such wide and desolate landscapes really remind me that we’re finally fully entering the west and leaving the midwest. Having spent most of my summers traipsing around the western states with my family, from this point on, it’s much more familiar territory. We also saw the Rockies on the horizon! After so much talk of crossing them, it was a bit surreal seeing them appear, knowing that we would take on the challenge soon.
“Blogger behavior,” aka trying to take photos on the road + the Rockies in the distance! ⛰️
🚂 This stretch was mostly parallel to a set of train tracks, so we were able to see a couple of trains go by with long chains of cargo in tow. While I wasn’t paying super close attention to them, one was apparently carrying the deconstructed parts of a windmill much like the hundreds we had seen in the days prior. A little of the “behind the scenes” action! They were super loud though, and the sound carried around us all the way to our first rest stop 24 miles in. This was a longer stretch than usual since there was literally nothing else inhabited on the way there, but at least this was a produce place we could finally stop at!
🥐…Except this wasn’t even an actual or open store, testifying to how sparse services are out here. Thus, our rest stop was of the picnic-blanket-on-the-ground-next-to-the-car flavor, which is also a vibe as well. Another thing to make it better was that Grandpa Tom and Grandma Brenda bought us HUMONGOUS cinnamon rolls from a local bakery that I happily chowed down on.
🏛️During this stop, Aarushi mentioned the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum about 10 miles away, which she had found when scouring for stops the night before. She didn’t end up picking it because of the awkward mileage and the fact it was slightly off-course, but Drew’s ears pricked up at the mention of aircraft. As our resident Course 16 (Aerospace Engineering), he was immediately determined to go and the rest of us were also interested! Thus, to the aircraft museum we went.
🛫As we sped into the museum area, we were simultaneously following signs to the Pueblo airport since they were right next to each other. I had the fleeting thought that in another completely non-realistic universe, we were a group of bikers racing to catch our flight. I don’t know what the context of that would be, but it was a fun scenario to ponder about — checking in our bikes, decked out in our gear…
🛬The museum appeared before us, and we all headed into the first hangar absolutely PACKED with planes. One of the workers there led us in and gave us a quick overview of their most famous plane, the B-29. We also learned more about it from Drew, who is a never-ending encyclopedia on planes.
B-29: The B-29 is most famous for being the first mass-produced bomber with a pressurized cabin, which allowed it to operate at much higher altitudes than rival planes (namely the Japanese air forces). They were the model of planes that dropped the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, proving to be instrumental in the conclusion of WWII.
🇻🇳 As we wandered around the hangar, Drew acted as our trustworthy tour guide and told us all about each plane that caught our eye. I learned how the Soviet Union and the US developed competing planes based on different philosophies in the Vietnam War: the US prioritized speed, the USSR prioritized maneuverability. Apparently the US’s bet didn’t pay off, and the USSR emerged victorious in this development battle. It was really cool to learn more about the technology that dictated the outcomes of different wars, since as someone with a very surface-level understanding of these historical events, these aspects of conflict are often glossed over and understated.
The hangar
We then all chose a plane that we felt most connected to — up to you to judge if you feel that they are accurate 😉
Nate, Grumman F9F Panther: The first jet-powered fighter aircraft to see air-to-air combat with the US Navy. It was also the first jet fighter manufactured by Grumman, known now to many as part of major defense company Northrop-Grumman.Carmen, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter: Deployed mostly as a fighter-bomber in the Cold War and is widely produced by other nations outside of the US.Nunu, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17: Saw most of its success in the Vietnam War, nearly a decade after development by the USSR. It was initially meant to combat slow-moving US bombers, but it was surprisingly successful against the US’s faster fighters that were designed for speed and long-range combat.Tatiana, Lockheed P-2 Neptune: Developed as anti-submarine warfare in WWII and was famous for its incredible range + mixed-engine design.Drew, Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog): The only aircraft in the Air Force developed primarily for close air support (attacking enemy ground forces)!Aarushi, F-86 Sabre: An iconic, transonic jet-powered fighter that defined early Cold War aviation. Most famous for countering the Soviet MiG-15 in high-speed dogfights over “MiG Alley” during the Korean War, it remains the most-produced Western jet fighter in history.Caroline (myself), RA-5C Vigilante: A highly advanced, carrier-based supersonic aircraft operated by the U.S. Navy. Originally designed as a Mach 2 nuclear bomber, it was later converted into a premier reconnaissance aircraft that played a major role in the Vietnam War. I just liked the shark face on the side!
😉 Alongside these deep and riveting history lessons, we also noticed that many of these planes’ facades would resemble certain facial expressions. Although almost certainly unintentional, they gave the planes so much personality that Nunu recreated them beautifully (+ a cameo from Drew and Aarushi, which is also why Aarushi is making a face in her plane photo for context).
😮
😦
😶
😛
😝
🧑🚀 Grandpa Tom also gave us a quick history lesson about the development of space suits! There are so many details that go into its creation that I never thought about, including being able to adjust the temperature of the suit and how the gloves are the area that need to be heated the most. The labeling on the suits must also be mirrored since the astronaut is using a mirror to see the front of their own suit, so the actual text must be mirrored.
📖 We left the aircraft museum enlightened and with a lot more knowledge of planes + Pueblo, or at least I did. This was honestly my dream stop and what I had initially imagined more of what this summer would be like — going to museums/visitor centers and learning more about the local history through these places. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve learned a lot from all of the people we’ve met and the other places we stopped, but nothing compares to a relatively unknown museum run by a small team. They often have the coolest bits of history and information that you’d never know otherwise, except for your decision to cross paths at this moment.
⚠️ On the next stretch, we hit some gravel and a desert-y area with some unique houses (a watermelon-shaped abode) and quirky decor (a giant 8-foot tall skeleton and a sign that said CAUTION: Corgi territory). Very uniquely western. We followed the gravel until we had to merge onto I-25 for a little while to reach our next rest stop, which was an official freeway rest stop. Unfortunately, the stop was closed and boarded up, so we spent a while debating what to do: to move or not to move, that is the question. We also made extra sure Tatiana (the driver) knew about the situation.
I was the first to sound the alarm + how it felt
☕️We ended up deciding to just have the rest stop in the unblocked exit of the rest stop, so Tatiana just backed the car up into the driveway and we had our stop on the side of the freeway. The picnic blanket is very clutch in elevating the vibes of the stops and allowing us to pretend we’re having a picnic somewhere not by hundreds of cars whizzing by! Brenda also brought some of us coffee, which was also very sweet.
😷 During this time, Aarushi finally pulled out the face mask her mom had got her for face protection, wanting to at least give it some action before she reunited with them later today. She put it on with some hesitancy after seeing Nunu rock it, but it ended up not fitting due to the limited real estate around her ear (where the mask hangs). For context, we have a LOT of gear around our face. Most of us have our sunglasses and shockz (sport headphones that go over your ear), so there’s already 2 things hanging off our ears… yeah the mask had to go.
No pictures 📸
🚵 We also had to decide if we wanted to stay on I-25 as well or not. During our brief stint on the road, several of us felt unsafe with so many cars going 80 mph past us. We decided to go on this small trail that ran parallel to the road for a couple of miles, and it was actually really fun! I’ve found the off-road stuff to be more and more fun after being initially scared of it, but after the long highways of Kansas, it’s much more mentally stimulating to be just a bittt worried if your bike will slip in the dirt or not. However, the fun was short-lasted, and soon we were back on our highways and streets. I biked with Aarushi and Carmen, helping Aarushi summarize the plot of the first Heroes of Olympus book (an ongoing conversation topic) whenever we could. However, the cars don’t seem to like it when we go 3-wide and take up the whole lane… it’s kinda rude, especially when we’re trying to have an important conversation.
🍧 Our last rest stop was Colorado Sno-Balls, a snow cone shop! I split a medium blue raspberry + cherry combo with Drew (which was good, since a medium turned out to be a good 5 stories tall) and it was AMAZING. Normally snow cones seem to have an issue with the top part being desaturated in syrup relative to the bottom, but this one was perfectly saturated at the top and had an amazing texture. $2.00 well spent.
🥪 Aarushi’s family, who had flown into Denver in the morning, met up with us and brought us a lot of delicious fruit. We had lunch outside on a bench before the skies opened up and brought a downpour, forcing us to evacuate under the narrow overhang. Aarushi’s parents were discussing Tatiana’s bad luck with mayo (see Day 17 blog) and Tatiana promptly drops her mayo-covered slice of bread into the cooler facedown — the universe works in funny ways.
🌦️ Once it stopped raining, we packed up for the last segment into Colorado Springs, and experienced my favorite weather. I love when you’re somewhere that was freshly rained on, with the rain still continuing on nearby and patches of clouds still lingering in the sky. It made for some great views that my phone camera can’t capture, but trust me when I say it was gorgeous, especially as the Rockies grew larger in the background. We also saw our first rainbow!
🍔 We biked on a nicely paved trail that followed a creek for the next couple of miles with a crazyyy headwind. The city also decided to become the hilliest it’s been the whole day, so suddenly the 10 miles to the end felt much longer than face value. We chugged through, and were soon rewarded by a sudden gift of… In N Out. A true oasis after many Wendy’s and McDonald’s. Right along our route, Nate and Drew, who were ahead of us, had also stopped and were planning to head inside. Aarushi kept going to meet up with her family, but the rest of us got a small thing to eat just for the joy that In N Out brings, rather than an actual meal since we wanted to leave room for the real dinner coming up. It was also Drew’s first time at one as well, so we needed to be there to witness history. I reunited with my beloved animal fries and got extra sauce on the side.
Click through quickly to see how he felt
???
🍉 After leaving In N Out, we powered through the last climb of the day and reached the airbnb that we were sharing with Aarushi’s family (thank you!!). It was a beautiful house that we had all to ourselves for the next two days. They cooked up a delicious dinner of Indian food, and it was so nice to have some flavors in my mouth that weren’t just tomato and cheese. The watermelon was also very yummy, and slightly resembled the Rocky Mountains.
⛰️🍉
⬆️ ⬇️ To round out the night, Aarushi’s dad asked us to share our highs and lows of the trip so far. We all went around, and it was an amazing conversation about our experiences. It was cool when we shared highs and when highs + lows were on the same day, showing just how much happens in a day. I shared a lot about my dog-bite experience (suprise surprise, my personal low), which was nice to get out. We moved the conversation to the couch after eating. It was a great reflective end to the day, and we went to bed excited about our rest day tomorrow! So many things to do, but so little time…
Lately it feels like our team has found its balance. The wide spectrum of speed demon to leisurely biker we talked about in our first week has condensed as people make compromises on the days we should focus on reaching our destination fast vs days we can reststopmaxx. Team meetings have become less frequent, the communication between team members becoming implicit and intuitive. After more than a month on the road, we all just know what to do: what it takes to get out of the house in the mornings, the list of team tasks before bed, how long each day’s route will take us and therefore how much dilly-dallying time we have at each rest stop. Everybody has implicitly-assigned tasks they take on, but also everyone quietly picks up slack wherever it’s needed. It feels like the seven of us are some fluid blob of force moving in sync across the country. Of course, there are days where the team splits, where we have wildly different opinions on the team’s next move that warrant an hour of circular discussion that usually concludes right back where we started, but it’s all part of the glorious fact that we are seven college kids spending 24/7 together. So what exactly is this “balance”, this “implicit routine” I speak of?
Today I would like to take you all behind the scenes and walk you through the accurate actual 100000-step daily routine of a Spokes day—-most of which is never notable enough for the blogs.
THE MORNING (~2h):
Wake up and get out of bed within five minutes of Tatiana’s alarm (a novel feeling as a recently reformed 20-minute alarm snoozer on campus)
Roll up and pack sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and camping pillow
Switch my headphones charging with my bike computer (I only have 1 USB-C charger)
Brush teeth, wash face, pee
Put a seemingly-ridiculous amount of chamois butter on the entire surface of your butt that touches the bike seat
Wear bike bib, jersey, sun sleeves, socks
Pack up all our belongings and put personal bags in the car (the faster I get at this the more intensely I feel like a true nomad)
Write thank you card for host
Do a few of the following communal tasks:
Re-pack the car’s overhead orange bag with the camping sleeping equipment
Put the team face wash, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, detergent, and extension cords in the toiletries bin and back in the car
Re-pack the cooler with our food and ice that was stored in the host’s fridge overnight
Fill the six team water jugs
Re-organize everyone’s personal bags in the car
Last sweep of the host’s place for forgotten belongings
Close the car trunk and attach the car’s bike rack and mount the driver’s bike
BREAKFAST! Which, when we don’t have a Warmshowers host that kindly cooks something for us, looks a little like shoving random things in your mouth from our “pantry” box: think bars, GoGo squeeZ, CheezIts…
Clean and fill personal water bottles
Load the day’s route onto the bike computer, which is a little screen mounted onto our handlebars that beeps to alert us where to turn and if a climb is incoming, so we don’t have to constantly check our phone maps to know where to go
Sunscreen
Wear gloves, earbuds, sunglasses, helmet
Say a teary goodbye to the driver for the day (Drew) and pedal off!!
PERFECT DRAFT LINE ON HIGHWAY 50!!! AGAIN!!!!
THE BIKING (~5-7h):
Clip in and pedal: our bike shoes are literally stuck to our pedals (“clipped in”) to maximize the force transfer from our legs to turning the wheels
Constantly rotate your hand position on your handlebars—-on the horns, the corners, the middle, the dropdown bars, or the very cool and sexy no hands flex—-to minimize hand cramping
Constantly shift your butt position to minimize butt soreness
Draft if windy, where you just stare at the tire of the person in front of you so intently you get tunnel vision
Listen to a rotating assortment of:
Music:
Carmen: pop music, especially on big climbs
Caroline: 2010s pop e.g. The Chainsmokers, French pop
Tatiana: listening to Adele recently, lots of EDM, Russian and Spanish playlists (her only two downloaded playlists)
Drew: country and K-pop
Nunu: her daylists, and she loves to share them with the team by doing a spotify JAM, which is a feature where anyone joining the jam can listen to the same synced up music
Nate: country
Me: my all-time favorites and road tripping playlists
Podcasts:
Tatiana: Explained (where they explain to you Time, The World’s Water Crisis, Sugar, and many other topics)
Caroline: stopped listening to podcasts once she got annoyed thinking about how she could also just be sitting and yapping instead
Books:
Drew: Project Hail Mary, The Secret History
Nunu: on the first day of Spokes she started the first Harry Potter book and never listened to it again
Me Caroline Tatiana and Carmen (soon): The Heroes of Olympus series (I felt like a lunatic re-telling the story of heroes fighting monsters to save a goddess from a giant to convince my 19-to-22-year-old teammates to listen to this with me, but it’s been the best brainless timepass)
Musicals (these are funnest as JAMS too):
Joint Hamilton listening session on July 4th (could feel my chest swelling with patriotic pride)
Joint Book of Mormon listening session (a very funny and absurdist religious satire)
Other notable musicals: Heathers, Dear Evan Hansen, Mamma Mia, High School Musical
Calling friends and family
The voices in our heads
Just Nate
When we’re not doing any of the above, we’re resting. And it’s fair to say that there are days where we spend the same amount of time resting as we do biking…
THE REST STOPS (~5-7h):
Unclip and lean your bike against the nearest leanable surface (the car, a pole, a wall, or just on the ground)
Find the nearest sittable surface (picnic bench, the curb, or just on the ground) and stuff your face with snacks, just a steady constant stream of eating regardless of the length of time we spend at the rest stop. Make sure that while you eat your current snack you plan the next snack you will reach for
Fill your water bottles up to the brim with ice from the cooler (don’t be shy, no matter how dirty your hands are just reach right in; no matter how frozen-into-a-big-block the ice is just keep bashing the bag against the concrete)
More sunscreen
The rest stops are planned the night before by Carmen and I, set at every 20-or-so miles, rounding down when the day’s mileage doesn’t evenly split in 20s. The summer started out with churches being the go-to typical rest stop, since they were always available regardless of how rural we were, and always had at least a parking lot we could eat out of, if not a picnic bench outside. Lately we have been experimenting with increasingly absurd(ly lit) rest stops. Today’s were particularly good:
Valley Grocery at 21.1 mi: We all bought Arizona Iced Teas, shamelessly ate our new snacks from Drew’s amazing Walmart haul (Rice Krispies and Nature Valley strawberry wafer bars and Mr. Beast beef sticks and oranges) in the convenience store that sells snacks, and discussed plans for our big end-of-spokes-summer BBQ/picnic in SF without any concrete resolution. Caroline successfully checked out the first Heroes of Olympus audiobook via Libby, Carmen placed a hold for it, and Tatiana failed to log-in to her Audible Amazon account (pictured below)
Dairy Queen at 37.2 mi: A mile before pulling up to DQ, Carmen and Caroline stumbled upon Tony’s Fresh Fruit Stand!! Tatiana and I quickly followed suit, of course, and we all bought heaping portions of mango, watermelon, pineapple, and cantaloupe. This genuinely felt like a mini-oasis amidst the fast food joints and Dollar Generals and coffee shops we had been stopping at, the unbeatable refreshing juiciness of fresh fruit that nothing can truly imitate. Carmen and I got ours with chamoy and tajin, the only right way to do it, and the best way to avoid the team tax. We shamelessly ate our fruit at Dairy Queen while only having bought 1 cookie dough blizzard and 1 bizarrely neon lemonade. Nate and Nunu, having reached DQ before us, biked back to the fruit truck to buy a deliciously perfect amount of mangos. A common theme of the summer is the seven of us pulling up to some establishment, loitering around while just a few people order, bringing our own snacks from the team car, talking extremely loudly about freaky things, overstaying our welcome by at least 30 minutes, telling random strangers that we’re dressed in matching outfits because we’re biking across the country, and then leaving. Today for the first time the stranger we were talking to was actually biking across the country too!! He had started around when we had, but had taken a route that dipped below DC and then went back up to Ohio. Yet with all the extra mileage he had reached the same Dairy Queen in Las Animas, Colorado at the same time as us! After retiring, he has done some crazy adventure every summer—like being the 39th person ever to raft the entire coastline of Florida. Very very cool.
La Junta Swimming Pool at 57.4 mi: When I first put a pool as a rest stop four days ago, I envisioned the team saying something along the lines of “bruh you’re always trying to waste as much time as possible.” To my surprise, everyone thought I actually had a great idea, and so I thought I would repeat it today in order to feel the same high of everyone liking my rest stop. We immediately changed and launched into the pool via the diving board, then made sure to hit both kinds of water slides, then spent a couple minutes debating whether or not we would get yelled at if we tried to chicken fight, then settled for attempting to launch Nunu off of Nate and Drew with some kind of cheerleading lift technique, then threw around our small foam football with a bunch of local kids, before Tatiana and I ended pool time with a front flip off the diving board. But of course, it wouldn’t be a proper rest stop if we didn’t tell at least someone that we are biking across the country. Apparently when Nunu, Nate, and Drew walked in, a lifeguard asked what they were up to dressed in bike bibs and all, and when they said that they were part of a cross-country bike team, all dozen lifeguards (all girls) flocked to them for a group photo. It was like real-life Baywatch.
McDonald’s at 58.4 mi and Wendy’s at 60 mi (unplanned): As soon as we left the pool, I suffered yet another flat tire (my fourth one?), which killed all my chances of making it to the next rest stop before the farm market closed at 6 pm. As I grumbled back to the car and as Nate helped me replace my tube, we started to see the signs of a big storm. Sand whirling in the air, crazy wind gusts, thunder… so we biked a mile forward in the craziest headwind I’ve ever experienced to take shelter at McD’s, while Carmen, Tatiana, and Caroline were a mile further at Wendy’s. Driver Drew promptly declared that we needed to wear our big boy pants and he wouldn’t SAG anyone, Nate, Nunu, and I promptly took a mini nap in various locations around the McD’s; and Tatiana ran into her awesome grandparents, Brenda and Tom, who were visiting us for the next couple of days!! The storm passed in thirty minutes and we continued on with a nice tailwind.
Storm
Knapps Farm Market at 69.7 mi: We were chasing sunlight at this point, out of hope that the elusive farm market rest stop would still be open. But as they say, hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. So with a heart full of hope, I tell Nunu and Nate, the two biggest skeptics on how rewarding this market would be, that we should pull over and check it out anyway. Lo and behold, the woman running the market was still there and was kind enough to let us look around even over an hour past closing! I had noticed that the literal mascot of the town we had just biked into was a melon (The Rocky Ford Meloneers), so with high expectations we bought one of every kind: watermelon, yellow watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew. I don’t even think I’m exaggerating when I say this was some of the best melon we’ve had in our lives. We looked like a pack of vultures in matching bike jerseys the way we descended upon and devoured these four tubs of melon. Grandma Brenda and Grandpa Tom even kindly bought us a couple extra tubs for the road!!
I realized recently that biking from east to west means we get to always end the day biking into the sunset. That’s exactly what we did as we pulled into Trinity Lutheran Church, where Pastor Josephson was waiting to greet us.
THE NIGHT:
Find some place to park the bikes (a garage if Warmshowers, a room or hallway if in a church, tied to a tree if camping) and grab all your chargeable devices (bike computer, earbuds, portable charger, occasionally headlight) in preparation to spend the rest of your evening running some schedular algorithm to rotate charging everything you own with just 1 USB-C cable
DINNER! Our lovely host Pastor Josephson had prepared us a true feast: taco bar, limitless Arizona tea and other yummy drinks, corn on the cob, and chocolate pudding. A huge huge thank you for all the effort it took to prepare and clean this up!!
Depending on when we arrive at night, step 2 and 3 get switched
Shower line: there’s usually only one or two showers for the seven of us, so getting undressed promptly is key. Today we went to the local high school, where Pastor Josephson’s friend was waiting for us in order to unlock the locker room where we could all shower at once (they’re actually called gang showers)
Brush teeth, wash face, pee
Unpack sleeping bags/pads/pillows
Charge all devices
Carmen and I make the route and route stops for the next day (this took two hours and I slept at 1 AM in order to cut 14 miles from tomorrow’s expected distance)
BLOG BLOG BLOG BLOG (we hope you appreciate the blogs because many hours of sleep have been lost over them)
Sleep.
No photos of the food spread, but here’s the spread of the drinks Pastor Josephson bought us and the snacks Tatiana’s grandparents bought us 🙂Funny photo of Nunu out of the high school locker room shower
And then we do it all again the next day. Super awesome….
I hope this blog lifts the veil a bit about the logistics of the trip and what our day to day biking actually looks like!! Comment any lingering questions and I pledge to resolve them diligently next week, my dear readers.
When I type out that we woke up at 8:30am in our hotel bedrooms and then went to eat our continental breakfast, I feel like we lose a lot of credibility when claiming that we are on a “difficult” bike trip. We are certainly very spoiled.
We must’ve decided to not include the “get fed in bed” and “have your bags and minivan packed for you” options in our luxury vacation package because we had to do all that ourselves after eating – life sure is hard
Some people take the shampoo and soap bottles from hotels, not us. On the way out, we made sure to drain all the water from the water dispenser in the hotel lobby to fill our water bottles and water jugs, and all the ice in the ice machine to fill our cooler.
Having milked the hotel of all water-based substances, we headed off for our ~80 mile ride at 9:30am.
After biking a couple of miles setting the group’s pace at a leisurely 10mph pace, Drew informed me “I think we can go a bit faster”. Say less Drew, you never have to tell me twice.
I sped up to a 12mph pace and saw that everyone besides Drew immediately fell behind. No shade to them, we’re at the end of a 7-day stretch of straight biking days and have done a total of 1,155 miles with only two off days (one rest, one teaching) in the past 2.5 weeks. They’re certainly entitled to take the ride at their own pace, and taking it easy is definitely the logical strategy.
Drew and I are particularly singularly-minded when it comes to biking though, and we share a telepathic connection in times like these. Without saying a word to each other, we sped off.
The first leg of our route today, from the hotel to the Mountain Time Zone border line, was a bit hilly (by Western Kansas standards) – which was unfortunate for Drew. Drew is a very fast biker but, at the end of the day, he weighs ~20-30lb (of pure muscle 💪) more than me – meaning he has to put in a lot more work to climb.
It was a tough day to not be able to keep up because I was feeling incredibly inspired by a back to back bike + run Strava post by my friend from the previous day, and so I decided to not wait up so that I could keep pushing through the hills to the rest stop at mile 18.
This stuff is kinda crazy. He didn’t take any break while biking and then went immediately into the run without a break.
After arriving at the rest stop, the rest of the team trickled in individually every ~5 minutes or so until we were all seated around the picnic blanket eating snacks and comparing the automatically updated timezones on our phones.
Sitting at the border of the Central and Mountain Time Zones.
We sat around at the rest stop for ~45 minutes before heading out for a short 10 mile leg to a Dollar General.
Singularly minded as ever, Drew and I decided to utilize the light tailwind and lack of hills on this leg of the route to speed off to the next rest stop. When we got there, we both exclaimed to Nunu (today’s driver) about how great the wind was and how little work we had to do while biking.
We perused around the Dollar General for a good 30 minutes waiting for people to trickle in and bought some snacks and a small toy football in the meantime.
Shortly after everyone had made it into the rest stop, Drew and I once again headed off towards the Colorado border.
We sped towards the border without anything too eventful happening, just using a very generous tailwind to keep up a fast 21mph pace all the way to the border. The only notable thing was somehow some sort of bug flew directly up the thumb hole of my glove and stung/bit me three times. But speed waits for no one, and so we quickly got back up to pace and forged onwards.
We sped by the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign as Nunu cheered us on from the side of the road, claiming first into Colorado, and then rolled back to the car where Nunu was waiting. The rest of the team was ~30 minutes behind us so we decided to kill some time by recreating a video of us crossing the border, and then waited in the car’s AC until the rest of the team rolled by. I found it interesting that every one of us biked past the car to cross into Colorado, and then proceeded to do an awkward turn on the highway shoulder to come back to the car.
We spent the next ~30 minutes taking various pictures at the Colorado sign, and then crossed over to the other side of the highway to take a picture with the Kansas sign since we didn’t get a chance to in Kansas City.
Good thing Carmen and I didn’t jump…Let’s pretend we took this when we entered Kansas.
In order to take these pictures, Carmen and I spent a good couple of minutes precariously climbing the Colorado sign – I think partially because the 2025 team has an iconic picture with them standing on the sign, and we didn’t want to get shown up.
Getting down from the sign was much worse though, and Carmen certainly took a large aura loss1 in the process. Since there are no pictures proving otherwise, I got down gracefully and seamlessly 🙂
Sorry Carmen.
As we were heading out, a family stopped by to take a picture with the sign. Notably, the family had a white dog named Max, and I got a picture of Caroline petting Max. This felt significant or something, like a full circle moment arranged by the universe.
Caroline and Max making amends.
After a bit of talking with the family, we biked an extra 0.5 miles past the sign to get to a nearby rest stop along the highway for lunch.
It was here that we encountered our newest foes of the summer: flies.
When I say these flies were vicious and relentless, I mean it. These flies were not scared of a waving hand, they would land on food we were actively eating, and they came in full force. Worse of all, it seems that they weren’t only interested in eating our food because they started biting us! I know flies are detritivores (i.e. an important part of the ecosystem) and I’m all for well balanced ecosystems, but I don’t understand why if they’re supposed to eat rotting/dead things they feel the need to eat us (living). I think the fact that we’ve seen so much roadkill with flies around them also makes me hate the idea of them landing on our food even more.
After finishing our lunch, in which a few of us fled the picnic table to get away from the flies, we somehow all ended up laying in the grass.
I think we all know where this is going.
We woke up 1.5 hours later.
I don’t even know why we decided to sleep here because the flies chased after us and were buzzing around + biting us (again, we’re not food). It was truly the most miserable nap I’ve ever taken… but we still took it…
In my attempt to hide from the flies, I ended up covering myself with one of our blankets and the picnic blanket we were sleeping on. While it looks insane, it actually wasn’t that hot and it was certainly much better than having the flies buzzing around biting all the time.
Assorted attempts at hiding from the flies.
The fact that we were in 95 degree heat and I was covered in blankets and didn’t feel that hot is a great demonstration of how great the dry heat we transitioned into is (as opposed to the humid heat from Missouri and eastward).
As the nappers groggily woke up and got ready to ride, Carmen and Drew (who didn’t sleep) decided they had been waiting long enough and left 5-10 minutes ahead of us.
With nothing better to do with myself and feeling in a speedy mood today, I decided that I needed to remind Carmen and Drew how things work around here by catching up and passing them. Queue “Burning Heart – Survivor”.
This ended up being pretty anticlimactic as I passed them somewhere around 10 miles into this leg of the route. I was hoping for some kind of reaction as I passed them but they kind of just stared at me…
If you pause the video at the right time you can see how done they are with me.
So that was a waste of time, but I was too deep into it now and so I kept up the pace to the next rest stop. Along the way I passed a guy who looked like he was on a backpacking trip and stopped to talk to him. He’s currently walking from Austin to Montana, which is pretty cool.
I arrived at the last rest stop at mile 63 of 80, at the Amache National Historic Site, and waited for maybe 5-10 minutes before Carmen and Drew arrived, and then Nunu shortly after.
Nunu had bought us popsicles and lychees at a local store (how did she even find lychees in the middle of eastern Colorado???) as a surprise, which was great and we made quick work of our allotted 2 popsicles and 3 lychees.
Some of us worked a little more gracefully than others…
I think around now we really started to notice the shift in vegetation and climate. Even just this morning we had been biking in fairly green farmlands, but now we were surrounded by a super dry, arid, borderline desert-looking climate.
The left is Drew and I biking around mile 40 vs the landscape at mile 63.
After eating our snacks, we decided to take a look around the Amache site. Amache was a Japanese internment camp used by the US during WW2. The site itself didn’t have much remaining – there were only 4 buildings in the ~410 acre site (a guard tower, a recreation hall, a water tower, and a barrack) and they were all replicas. Nonetheless, I think it was still great to remind ourselves about a somewhat forgotten part of US history and better appreciate how bad the conditions were (tiny living areas with no furniture, climate control, or privacy). Seeing the site also sparked some discussion amongst the team after Tatiana asked if we “thought anything like this could happen again in the US”.
Amache rec hall on the left and barracks, water tower, and guard tower on the right.
After wrapping up our rest stop, we biked the last 17 miles to the church that was graciously housing us for the night: Lamar Christian Church. We once again were able to take advantage of a large tailwind, as Drew and I sped to the church hitting speeds of up to 29mph, prompting us to appreciate the fact that we made it across Kansas with more help than hurt from the wind.
We arrived at the church a bit earlier than they were expecting us, so we had some time to spare. My watch was showing the ride at 78.5 miles instead of 80, so I made a plan to bike an extra 1.5 miles in the meantime to get a nice number on my Strava post. Conveniently, Drew wanted to go to a McDonalds 1.5 miles away.
Drew, myself, and Carmen, who had arrived shortly after us, biked over to the McDonalds where they got some sodas. I didn’t get anything, I just appreciated the nice round number on my watch. Somehow, Caroline got roped into biking over to McDonalds, and she arrived just as we were biking back to meet Tatiana and Aarushi for dinner. I don’t think she appreciated the extra 3 miles that got added to her route.
We biked back to the church and then biked a couple of blocks over to Lucy’s Tacos, who had kindly offered to donate the team 7 delicious burritos for dinner.
They gave us 3 beef, 2 adobada, and 2 chicken burritos and obviously everyone wanted the beef ones. We ended up generating random numbers to assign who would get the beef burritos, and then did the same with the adobada burritos. I got stuck with the chicken burrito, but it ended up being a fan favorite, so I really can’t complain. It was also free food, so I REALLY can’t complain. Seriously, that was a great burrito.
About to devour a great burrito.
There wasn’t really much reason to do this though since we proceeded to be very on brand and pass all the burritos between each other in what I can only describe as a fully connected graph.
We ate burritos like K7 with everyone passing burritos across each other’s hands.
You’d think this blog was already long enough, and I agree, but Aarushi doesn’t.
As we were biking out of the restaurant to head back to be let into the church, Aarushi somehow got our bike lock cable wrapped up and knotted in her front tire axle. We deemed there was no way for us to get it out and so we left resolving this as an issue for after our learning festival tomorrow.
Look how proud she is of how tightly she wrapped it around her tire. We ended up having to bolt cut the cable…
In the meantime, we all unpacked, showered, and did some blogging. The rest of the team decided to watch Superbad on one of the big TVs in the church, but I was SuperTired and went to bed as fast as I could.
– Nate
1 I’m too old to be describing this, and if you’re reading this looking for a definition you’re probably too old to be using this vocabulary anyways.
A tailwind, compared to a headwind, can cut the amount of time you spend on the bike in half. I think all of us have gotten to the point where the limiting reagent in determining how far we can go in a day is not our physical capability, but rather how long we can tolerate being hunched over as our butts are pressed up against the saddles. This is why the most wonderful gift you can receive biking from east to west across the US is a tailwind. Prevailing Westerlies driven by Earth’s rotation and the jet stream result in such a gift being painfully rare.
Today, we reaped the benefits of a massive tailwind departing Dodge City. Considering that “Dodge” is one of the windiest cities in the world, nestled in the great plains with no trees or geology to stop wind, I’m especially grateful that the wind was behind us and not in front of us.
The only thing that went wrong this morning was Aarushi’s first flat tire since installing a tube in her punctured rim/tire. The tube-change went smoothly on the side of highway 50.
Everybody told me Kansas was this flat expanse of nothingness. This is the part of Kansas they were talking about.
I sent a picture of what I saw as I was biking to my roommate, Jonas, and he responded, “This looks what they show when I get an eye exam.”
We biked through this huge field of wind turbines that seemed to go on forever. I’d never seen a wind turbine up close before, so I was very surprised by how big they were. I was even more awed as we biked past a factory where they assemble the turbines and saw the massive blades on the ground up close.
For the last several days, we have been biking on U.S. 50. And considering that we will continue to be biking on highway 50 until we get to Colorado Springs, I try to push for us to take every chance to take an alternate route whenever it makes sense. U.S. 50 has it’s pros and cons. The main pro is that it has a massive shoulder which accommodates us very very well. The cons are that it feels kind of demoralizing as trucks blow past you at 70 mph all day and you’re stuck on your little contraption peddling for eternity on the same road. One more con is that you bike past cattle feedlots which smell horrendous. Imagine the most packed concert in the world, except, instead of people, it’s cows. I promise I’m not that sensitive, but I almost had to yack on the side of the road today.
We decided to take an alternate gravel route which was really really fun. Occasionally it would turn from gravel into a bit of a more sandy texture that presented an added challenge in the midst of geography that is rather understimulating.
Aarushi’s back tire popped again. Nate says that this is just part of the life of running tubes as opposed to tubeless. This is my first time being in the proximity of somebody cycling long-distance using tubes, so I accept Nate’s opinion as fact and mentally prepare for many more roadside stops.
The best part of the day: The POOL! I’d been begging the team for the past several days to go to a pool because it sounds like the best thing ever after a day of biking in 100 degree weather. We spent an hour or two at a public pool outside of Garden City, Kansas for our final rest stop. After judging each Spokie’s diving form we moved on to draining the pool concession stand of everything they had. We are very hungry, all the time.
The day concluded with dinner at Victory Baptist Church in Lakin, KS with several church members. They were very kind and fed us homemade sloppy joes and homemade ice cream, and a ton of other stuff that was very tasty. They also, out of extreme generosity, provided us with rooms at the local inn as our sleeping accommodations. This was the best place to sleep I could ask for, considering I have to wake up and…
Macksville, KS to Dodge City, KS — 62.6 mi, 957 ft
Have you ever woken up to the feeling of your entire body itching from the very top of your head to your smallest toe? Well that’s how we all woke up this morning—everybody except Tatiana because mosquitoes don’t like her.
Last night our team went to a local park to celebrate July 4th. We ate from a Mexican food truck and played a little bit too intense game of ultimate frisbee. Our team is very competitive. Unfortunately, despite drenching ourselves in bug spray and then also using a kind stranger’s entire second can of bug spray, the bugs still got to us. Here’s a rough estimate of how many mosquito bites everyone on the team has now. Nunu: 25, Caroline: at least 30, Drew: 20-25, Aarushi: 20, Tatiana: 0, Nate: like 10000000000000.
So, we all slowly got ready and complained about our aches, sores, and itches more so than usual this morning. Also for some reason, we decided to spread out across different rooms of the church basement to try and hide from the sounds of the fireworks that had gone on past our bedtime the night before.
Nate sleeping in a supply closet with no windows
We had our alarms set for 8 and almost everyone was out of bed by 8:30ish but we had to be completely out of the church by 9:30 because Pastor Russell was hosting a breakfast then and guests would be arriving. We rushed to clean our mess and were done by 9:28.
We then shared an amazing breakfast with the Macksville Christian Church community full of so many fruits, pastries, and the fluffiest biscuits and gravy. We stuffed ourselves and I of course went back for seconds. Drew then serenaded everyone with some piano and we said our goodbyes around 11.
Recently, our group has all been biking together in a sort of blob which ebbs and flows, stretching close and then far apart. We’ve also been biking on highway 50 for the past two days so even if I’m a couple miles ahead or behind, I can see the rest of my team because we’re literally biking in a straight, flat line for the entire 80 mile day.
Our first rest stop was at the same park that we had gone to the night before to watch fireworks. Aarushi, our driver for the day, sarcastically exclaimed, “doesn’t this look familiar?” Me, not catching the sarcasm, moments later told everyone, “wow it’s the same park we were at last night!” Everyone on the team seems to think that I do this a lot and don’t pay attention to what people are saying but I genuinely just believed that Aarushi thought the park looked familiar…
Anyway, we continued our ride and made it to THE HALFWAY POINT OF THE US!? Or so we thought. It actually was not the geographic center, just the center between New York and San Francisco—which is still pretty cool. It’s crazy to think that we are basically halfway through our trip both in terms of distance and timeline. When I think about it too much I feel sad because I don’t want this summer to end. Our first bike day feels like so long ago yet also like time has just flown by.
We also stopped by the museum associated with this halfway point which had a bunch of old furniture, technology, and clothes. Most interesting to our team was this old bike that someone had ridden basically the same distance as us thus far. The only difference was that it was a single gear, no brakes, bare bones road bike—something we all agreed would be impossible for us to have done.
As we kept biking, we began to see hundreds and hundreds of… windmills! Not only that but they were facing us. This can only mean one thing… tailwinds!!!!!! We later found out that in this county alone they have 700 windmills.
We continued biking suspiciously faster than usual until we made it to our third and final rest stop of the day, a pool! But, unfortunately it was closed. Instead, Tatiana and Nate decided to jump through the sprinklers that had gone off across the lawn. Here’s when I noticed Nate’s back covered entirely with mosquito bites.
We then sat and ate our usual overpacked sandwiches as well as more snacks than you could ever comprehend. I chose this moment to take inventory of everything we’d finished eating after Tatiana and I had just gone grocery shopping the day before.
30 pack of capri sun
11 oz box of nilla wafers
90 slices of pepperoni
3.5 lbs of grapefruit
2.25 lbs of gummy worms
24 pack of gogo squeeze
2 trays of watermelon
And probably much more
We had an extremely long lunch break, I think starting from 4PM and ending at 6PM. The more we sat, the more I ate. We also realized that our biking to rest time ratio for today was becoming a whopping 1:2. Just extreme bums eating extreme amounts. Eventually, we decided to depart on our last leg to our hosts, Lindy and Warren’s house. Because we’d eaten such a late lunch, we decided to switch up the order of our usual night routine of dinner first. Everyone showered first. Then while some people blogged, Drew and I went outside to pump tires and oil chains. This took maybe 30 minutes and within that time I think I got bitten at least 10 more times by mosquitoes. I came inside with a mosquito bite on my forehead and on my cheek!
We sat down for dinner around 9PM and had some amazing lasagna and iced tea! Lindy and Warren told us all about the history of Dodge City and why it’s called the “Wickedest Little City in America.”
We ended the night by doing a popcorn reading of Nate’s blog. As a team we also love when a new blog is posted and enjoy laughing at them together. We also know that we’ve been behind and we really appreciate all of our friends and family that keep up with them despite that.
250 years ago to the day, half of Britain’s colonies seceded from King George III’s grasp and the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, creating a permanent separation between the American and British people.
We have reinforced this separation, through the creation of rather distinct cultures. There are some things that are uniquely American; the Brits would agree, and so would everyone else on this tiny globe.
To celebrate, here is my own version of the most American things we’ve seen and done on this semiquincentennial.
The day started as early as we now normally do, at 5 am, afraid of the humid 95 degree weather we’d have to face at noon. After saying goodbye to our hosts Janet and Orvin, we set off on our first leg of the day.
Today, only four of us were biking: Nate, Drew, Aarushi, and I. Tatiana was driving, Caroline was taking her rest day, and Nunu was going to urgent care to address the ever present issue of chafing.
This first 18 mile stretch went by quite quickly. We drafted the entire time (beautiful), held a 17-20 mph pace (amazing), and just tried to go fast, since that’s the only entertainment this ride along highway 50 can provide.
Hundreds of miles of a long, empty, flat road with a shoulder as wide as the driving lanes
Until about halfway through we had an ugly headwind, which then turned into a tailwind, and then into a diagonal ish crosswind. I could barely draft the last mile as I had to keep bobbing left and right to try and oppose it…
Our first rest stop was at a gas station. We were lucky we got there when we did, since it looked like a horrendous storm was brewing, only a mile or so in front of us. Drew is the one who normally calls the rest of us lame when we chicken out of biking in a thunderstorm. But when he saw this one in the distance, he even suggested we wait it out. All of us were so concerned we considered sagging out the rest of the ride, all 74 miles.
Terrifyingly windy storms that last as quick as they arrived
The audacity to bike on a hunk of metal through a thunderstorm with the belief that everything will be fine
Drew decided now was the perfect opportunity to go and play basketball with a local team for a July 4 event, even though he was the one who said it looked like tornado weather. The rest of us began to prepare for the worst. Tatiana started the hour drive to the church to drop off our luggage and free up sag spots. This time it was Nunu who got left at urgent care, and Caroline gallantly stayed at the church to ensure enough seats were open in the car.
Nate attempting to hold onto his hair in the wind
While waiting for either the storm to pass or for our car to return, the four of us camped out in the corner of the gas station.
We bought every Peelerz flavor there was under the sun and tried them all together, while Nunu made a tik tok.
Overconsumption, the incessant need for variety, and the availability of infinite options to choose from, even at a small gas station in the middle of nowhere in Burrton, KS
Making a tik tok about overconsumption, the incessant need for variety, while choosing from an infinite number of options provided by a small gas station in the middle of nowhere in Burrton, KS
Miraculously, the weather cleared up after about two hours and then we were on our way. Not sagging out of this 90+ mile day after all.
Drafting means you feel less hot with the wind cooling you down, you go at a faster pace with less effort, and hours of biking shorten. But also you’re bored out of your mind, staring at the back wheel in front of you, your concentration narrowed down to the 6 inch gap you’re trying to maintain with your life because falling back means falling out of line permanently and biking alone for the rest of the 20 miles until the next rest stop. This may be an exaggeration, but illogically, sometimes, it feels this way. To tamp down this boredom we all, at last, decided to give in and join a Spotify jam. We listen to the entirety of Hamilton.
With this raw musical genius and patriotism rushing through my veins, I was propelled to the second rest stop, one of those small cafes that Nate and Drew love so dearly.
Listening to Hamilton for hours on end, voluntarily filling our heads with red-blooded American pride
On our way in, the four of us were having that exact discussion: the merits of coffee houses. We were walking through the doorway, two baristas standing behind the counter staring us down, when Nate said something along the lines of “We’re just not going to get the same satisfaction as you when we stop at random coffee shops.” We stared at him, eyes raised. He turned around to face the barista with the neon green buzz and said, “but not this one” and laughed awkwardly.
Having zero subtly
Drew and Nate then start ogling everything on the menu, saying “ooh that looks so good”, probably trying to save face. It was hilarious. I had to stop myself from laughing otherwise it would take away the sincerity they were trying to convey.
They ended up ordering 12 quesadillas each.
On our way to the third rest stop, we began to cross more and more cow territory. After Kentucky I’ve developed a fondness for cows, since they don’t try to bite our ankles. When biking by, we all noticed that if we MOO at them, every single cow will turn their head to look towards us. Hundreds of big black eyes stare at probably the most interesting thing they’ve seen all day.
Kansas may be flat but in a charming way
At this point we’ve also created our own unique moos. The rest of us moo like normal people would, but Drew has decided to moo in a high pitched moan that manages to startle me more than the cows.
During this stretch, Drew also decides to show off his aerodynamic pose that he learned from a Tour de France champion. Incredibly skillful.
Being less graceful than the French
At the end of the third stretch we finished all of Hamilton. As I was listening to his dying thoughts, the rest of us were also contemplating our deaths as we had to trudge through this horrible sand pit for several miles.
The next rest stop was at the Oasis gas station, where we met the new owners who had recently renovated the place. When we first walked in, the lady behind the counter immediately started making conversation with us, asking why we looked so coordinated. Two things first stood out to me: 1) that she was so curious and outgoing, and 2) that she had an accent I couldn’t place. We later learned that she and her husband (the owners) had moved from South Africa to start a life here in Kansas. They had a farm and had also taken on this business within the past few months.
The American dream might actually be real. These two people uprooted their whole lives to move to a different country and now live on their own terms
By the time we were about to leave, our car finally showed up. They surprised us with bomb pops that we eagerly devoured in this sweltering heat.
On the second to last stretch we listened to the Mamma Mia soundtrack (we’re really into this jam thing now), while I hopelessly attempted to explain the plot to Aarushi, and usually just called in Nate to show off his extensive musical knowledge.
As we arrived at the last rest stop, we were surprised with a patriotic FEAST! Red, white, and blue everything: gatorade (limited edition Uncle Sam flavor I guess), those delicious plastic cookies, all the fruit we could eat.
What was even more beautiful than our lunch was the public bathrooms. Pristine. After being scarred from all sorts of smells emanating from dank holes in the ground, this clean, wintergreen scented restroom instantly made the next twenty ish miles bearable and me that much happier. I noticed this was unique to Kansas. Top tier bathrooms alongside roads in the middle of nowhere. Always a 7-8/10
Roadside janitors
The last leg was uneventful but Tatiana made sure we’d remember our arrival to the church. She surprised us with her very best twerk while shaking even more red, white, and blue flavored drinks.
We were staying in the small town of Macksville; they’re so small they don’t host July 4th celebrations. Our contact for the church, Katrina, told us there was one in the next town over. So to not waste any time (relatively) we all decide to skip showering, change, and hop in the car, our stink masked by a build up of deodorant.
It had a wonderful vibe. It made me realize how important community is, especially in a small town like Lewis. Kids were playing at the playground, parents lounging on the field, families in the surrounding neighborhood chaotically setting off their own fireworks. Genuinely everyone and their cousin were lighting fireworks in the middle of their front yards. The sound and the smoke was intense, but really added to the MURICA of it all.
Setting off fireworks from the trunk of your car
We got these utterly delicious barbacoa tacos and ate them on the grass while trying to avoid being eaten alive by bugs. And then, the next course of action was obviously to play a game of ultimate where we “randomly” divide up teams based on who has and has not played frisbee for MIT. I wonder who won.
Aarushi took some very cinematic photos of us, with the fireworks bursting in the background.
Finally the real fireworks show (put on by the fire department, not Gary from down the street) was about to start. As we sat down to watch, we got mauled by biting flies and mosquitoes. Throughout the show we (well at least I was) were just slapping ourselves. It got so bad that we had to ask the man behind us for his bug spray, and then proceeded to use up the whole can. Our generosity knows no bounds. Tatiana did try to pay for it but the kind man refused her offer.
Gary’s fireworks getting mogged by the professionals
Kind people willing to donate what they have without expectation of anything in return
The fireworks were beautiful, and from this photo it looks like they moved us to tears. Maybe we all were about to sneeze at the same time, I’m not sure.
At the end of the show, we decided we’d had enough of the bugs and escaped into the car. While driving back, we saw hundreds of kids on the side of the road throwing gunpowder popper bomb things at the ground, twirling sparklers in the air. In the small town of Lewis, Kansas it seems like July 4th is one of the major holidays they go all out for.
Kids being trusted to not burn their fingers off
The next morning as we biked out of Macksville, the road looked like a battlefield with red, white, and blue shrapnel everywhere. In the daylight it was slightly dystopian. It’s interesting how that’s simply evidence of a lively community.
Rural communities bound together in their local group through traditions and town-wide celebrations
This list is my realistically absurd representation of the American spirit. I hope it’s at least somewhat coherent.
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave,
On all of the alarms we set, we have this option to delay whatever is so important that necessitates its own reminder, merely for another 9 minutes (the default on an iphone). Yet those 9 minutes can feel like an eternity — or nothing — before the alarm goes off again and you are faced with the decision of delaying life just a bit longer again. I had never used the snooze button until coming to MIT. Whether that means I’m just more tired most days or don’t look forward to class is something I have yet to unpack.
Today was a snoozing day. We always agree on a time to wake up the night before, and we agreed on 7 am since it wasn’t forecasted to be as hot as the previous days that necessitated much earlier wakeups. That 7 am slowly became 7:40 am as each individual alarm went off, got snoozed, went off again, rinse and repeat. Finally, after 40 minutes of this symphony of alarms, I pulled myself out of my warm sleeping bag and hurried downstairs to get ready. Drew also took the chance to put his corn onto his helmet, since he didn’t get to meet Helmet Flair yesterday but took the uni-corn decoration for the road. After a long debate over the placement, he settled on a slightly askew orientation that suits him perfectly, in my humble opinion. It’s been the subject of many jokes ever since, as you might imagine.
We left the church at around 9:40 am, and soon joined US Highway 50, a road we would soon become very familiar with. Apparently it is a major east-west route that spans the US, and it seems that we will rejoin it in Nevada for the stretch that is “the loneliest road in America!” But to not get ahead of ourselves, the 50 will be our friend for a bit longer before we leave it, or at least for the majority of today. While I’m not a fan of large highways, this one has at least a massive shoulder (most of the time), which provides some protection from the semis that roar by and gives me some wiggle room when I inevitably swerve from the gusts of wind they produce. Additionally, most drivers are pretty respectful — many like to switch entirely into the oncoming lane, which is slightly comical but I appreciate the commitment to not hitting us. However, there is always a car who gets a bit too close for comfort, to which I inch a little more to the right and keep pedaling as fast as I can.
Capturing the 50 experience
With how exposed we are on the highway and in tandem with the naturally flat and sparse landscape, wind is our biggest friend and foe. I learned this a couple of days ago with our rough ride into Kansas City, and discovered that the most important thing was to truly bike at my own pace. I think I challenged myself last time a bit too much early on, which led to a miserable experience in the second half. I went ahead of the group initially, pushing against a headwind + crosswind that seemed to follow us across Kansas. Carmen, Drew, and Nunu joined, and we biked as a group to our first rest stop. It was a pretty straightforward stretch, except for the brief scare when Drew decided to bike hands-free — on the shoulder, on a downhill, with a strong crosswind. I looked up to see him nearly swerve into the traffic after losing control, which prompted a slightly guilty look back and a “maybe let’s not do that here?”
For our first rest stop, we had the choice of a coffee shop or a park. So naturally, we chose the coffee shop. Many of you have probably read Drew’s laments over our coffee drinking tendencies in his blog, but objectively the coffee shop was a better rest stop in this case… not only are there other options besides coffee 99% of the time, it provides a break from the natural elements (mosquitos, heat, etc.), and we get to interact with locals. While I agree all things should be in moderation, I digress.
Right as we started biking to the coffee shop, Nate (today’s driver) pulled up behind us on the same road. As I’m biking, I look to my left and see the minivan pass me, but with Drew biking behind it with maybe an inch to spare. He yelled, “THIS IS THE BEST DRAFT EVER,” so of course I tried to catch up with Carmen in tow. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to experience the draft for long as I remember “ooh I’m blogging!” (a universal blogger experience) and slow down to take a photo. Please appreciate this super gorgeous amazing photo because I missed out on the best draft ever for this 😞
Outside of the 30 mph draft, Nunu and I biked the actual route to the shop, taking a pretty sidewalk through a park and across a cool water feature. The downtown of the town, Cottonwood Falls, is also super cute and has a beautiful courthouse!
We went inside the coffee shop, called HeBrews CoffeeHouse. It was both a place of worship and a café, which was pretty unique! I ordered a delicious smoothie and breakfast burrito to make up for our haphazard breakfast, and everyone else followed suit with their food/drinks of choice. While sitting there and relaxing, we were asked by another customer named Lola about our trip and our biking experience. As we were sharing our story as usual, Tatiana and Aarushi asked Lola about her experience with sports as a rising junior in high school. After briefly mentioning running, she casually dropped the fact that she does RODEO competitively.
Inside the shop
For anyone unfamiliar (I sure was), rodeo involves several different equestrian events that are rooted in the practices of cattle herding in the US and tests abilities associated with ranching. Lola showed us a couple videos of her riding one of her horses and roping a calf, where the competitor is evaluated based on the time it takes for them to successfully rope the calf. Her average is apparently 2 – 3 seconds?? Unsurprisingly, these times are winning times. She had won $4,000 the night before and was traveling that night for another competition. Lola also showed us a video of her older brother competing in an even larger rodeo, to which we all crowded around her phone and got to watch him in the tie-down roping event. Our jaws were dropped.
As we spoke some more, we learned more about ranching, which is her family’s business. I learned about all of the different steps and businesses involved in raising cattle, as many are transported between many facilities at different stages of their life. We also learned that Vonda, our barista, and Lola are best friends! She was just stopping by before we had our conversation, and she soon had to leave. While we prepared to leave as well, Vonda generously donated a box of yummy pastries for us on the road.
Thank you so much for your kindness, Vonda!
On the way out of the town, we wanted to try drafting Nate + the minivan again to experience it. Even on his driving day, he’s still the one breaking wind for us… However, we quickly noticed a loud sound coming from the floor of the minivan, stopping to find that a part of the oil pan (?) had come loose and was dragging on the road. A kind lady from the house we stopped by came out and directed us to a nearby auto shop, which was thankfully just where we came from wasn’t even a mile away. Shoutout Dieker Oil for fixing it up for free!
The next leg involved the only bit that was close to climbing along our extremely flat route. We went up a hill that felt like the highest part of Kansas, as I saw endless green fields stretching from all around once at the top. Kansas is honestly the state that has surprised me the most in terms of its flora and fauna, as I have definitely seen some crazy insects and plants that I wouldn’t have initially attributed to it. I coasted down the crazy downhill, and hit some gravel before joining back onto our friend, the 50.
Exhibit A of Kansas’s bugs
At this point, I was not feeling super well and slowed down a bit as I fought back some nausea. I took an advil from Aarushi, which helped a lot. We biked as a group to the next rest stop. I learned about Tatiana’s grandparents, Brenda and Tom, who are visiting us soon in Colorado! This stop was an old mill and abandoned town with many “property for sale” signs littered around. We had lunch for the first time in like 5 days under a large tree, slightly crammed onto our picnic blanket and enjoying the routine of making our sandwiches. After eating, several of us took a much needed power nap. I think naps are the cure to everything. Everytime I’ve felt slightly off, a nap has freed me of all ailments — any doctor reading, look into this. 👀
The next leg is… you guessed it, more Highway 50! But before that, I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack with Tatiana and Drew, achieved by all pressing play at the same time. Except we can’t all press play at the same time, so we were off by maybe 2 seconds between the 3 of us. This made singing together a bit more challenging but 10x funnier with the offset.
We all biked together along the shoulder, risking at most going 2-wide to talk to each other occasionally. As our last rest stop, Dollar General, loomed closer, Aarushi suddenly pulled over to stop. She said she had heard a pop, and following our trials and tribulations with tires yesterday, we were prepared for maybe some sputtering sealant or a slash to repair. What we weren’t prepared for though, was a GIANT nail puncturing her tire all the way through the rim. It was quite impressive. As Drew said, “you didn’t see the Washington Monument in front of you?” This is just the first of many tire issues for Aarushi, sadly…
Nail outlined for reference
Once at Dollar General, a grand discussion commenced. As a non bike-savvy person, I let the experts debate how to handle the potential repair and what to do for the last 20 miles. We wandered the aisles in the meantime, buying all sorts of junk and justifying it by the cheap prices. I snagged a Snapple Mango Madness, a Starbucks frappuccino, and a Naked smoothie, please don’t ask me about my sugar consumption.
The council in the “as seen on TV” aisle
We settled on switching Nate’s tire with Aarushi’s for now, and let Nate use his extra time waiting for us at our host’s home to use gorilla tape and a tube (our tires are originally tubeless) to work some magic.
Now, the final stretch of Highway 50 — for today, at least. In a rare event, we got everyone in the same jam to listen to the Book of Mormon soundtrack. Everyone on the team had been exposed to some extent thanks to Tatiana and Drew, but now we finally sat down and got everyone to listen to the whole thing. Drew downloaded Spotify just for this, so you know it was serious. Carmen and I then sped to the end, enjoying the sun as it lowered in the horizon and spared us from its harshest rays. At one point, to my right, a great blue heron flew out of nowhere and glided along me for quite a while, which was magical. As someone who is relatively interested in birds, every interaction or sighting of birds besides the common ones (red-winged blackbirds, European starlings, etc.) are something special to remember. It was there for so long that I decided to pull out my phone and get a picture, but I’m still working on my on-bike photography skills.
Please enjoy these attempts
Not bad…
Right up in the corner
Missed completely
We pulled off the highway with a couple of miles to go and enjoyed some gravel to round out the ride with the side of another dog running out on the road. I got to practice my dog-shout since I missed most of Kentucky. Slightly worried about the dog, Carmen and I waited for the rest of the group, then arrived at our WS hosts for the night, Janet and Orvin!
Their dog, Enzo, longingly looking for a snack. And Phoebe, their adorable + cuddly cat.
For dinner, we finally had corn on the cob, something we’ve been craving after passing through a bajillion corn fields every day. We also had Janet’s AMAZING mulberry + rhubarb pie, which was the perfect balance of sweet and tart for me. For the cherry on top, all of the ingredients for this meal were sourced locally, as Janet explained where she got each fruit/vegetable used. It made me think fondly of home, where most of the vegetables in our meals are from our garden.
As the night wound down, I watched some pre 4th of July fireworks in the neighborhood with Janet, Orvin, and Aarushi. I’ve heard so many fireworks go off before the actual 4th that I’m excited for what the actual holiday has in store. For now, I’m grateful to have a full stomach, a mattress, and excitement for the days ahead, even if it is Highway 50 as far as the eye can see.
The answers to my lying blog last week (did you spot them all?)
Drew doesn’t snore
Nate had exiled himself from the sleeping bag room from the start because he states he needs his alone time or something
They both have healthy relationships and don’t feel the need to stay on call with their girlfriends overnight
Never a joyful mood in the mornings
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.
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)
No tarantula on Drew’s face and nobody petted it and he definitely didn’t want to adopt it
Neither did Carmen try stealing a butterfly
We sliced the sausage with knives like normal people and put it in our sandwiches
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.
Nate could not care less if we rode the carousel, especially if we were riding it together
Caroline did not cross the Missouri swimming, nor did she get saved by a beaver (hopefully the lies were obvious by now)
Nunu and Tatiana didn’t start running away at the sound of the thunderstorm
Nunu didn’t fall through the floorboards of an abandoned hostel building and definitely didn’t pee in it
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……
Various shots of the six engineers at work figuring out our flat tire
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.
Drew’s joker-looking tireless bike after Carmen and Caroline stole both
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.
Nunu knocked down an entire case of KIND bars and four engineers hard at work to put it back together organized (peanut butter on one side, chocolate on the other)Most delicious haul ever devoured
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.
I was not having the very best time, but it was gorgeous.
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!!
MIT Spokes 2026 