Day 32 – Hello Kansas

July 22
Ash Grove, MO to Pittsburg, KS
73 miles

We finally escaped Missouri today, but not without one more stretch of roller coasters. Boy, are we ready for some different terrain. A couple of hours into the day’s ride, ML’s rear tire flatted again. We pulled over to the nice lawn next to the Massey-Ferguson dealer to change the tube, and while we were doing so, Seann, another westbounder pulled up. We have been playing leapfrog with Seann ever since Summersville. He rides faster than we do, but we get up earlier, so every day he passes us during the late morning.

Lunch stop for the day was Cooky’s in Golden City, a café known far and wide among Transamers for being bicycle-friendly and for their dozen-plus pie varieties. We have been dreaming about pie and looking forward to this lunch stop for several hundred miles. ML had peach (of course) and K had strawberry-rhubarb. The pie was solid, but not as good as what’s served in the 66th street neighborhood, so it left us a bit homesick. This won’t keep us from testing more pie across the country though.

The rest of the ride was long and hot, and included a trek through mud to avoid an 8-mile detour around a construction zone. Many other cyclists had told us to ignore the detour and just continue through, noting that the ¼ mile walk through the construction zone was well worth the miles saved. Well, this was before the previous day’s heavy rain that turned the construction zone to a muddy mess. We got through it, but not before gumming up our wheels/fenders with mud that literally kept the wheels from turning. We spent a good 30 minutes cleaning out enough mud from under the fenders to let the wheels spin freely so that we could continue on.

The last 15 miles were a sprint into Pittsburg as we raced to reach the bike store before it closed at 6pm. Bike stores are very few and far between on the Transam, and we didn’t want to miss this one. We arrived at 5:20 and a mechanic immediately started working on K’s bike to adjust the shifter. After her bike was done, it was off to the Y for a shower, then dinner, then to the city park to set up camp.

Kansas first impressions: people are extremely friendly, even more so than the previous states, hard as that is to believe. While we were waiting in the bike store, Kenny, a professor at Pittsburg State University came right up to us, stuck out his hand, and introduced himself. We had a long chat about biking, Seattle, and other random topics. We have had many similar encounters our first day in Kansas.