Tuesday, June 30: Yesterday really had me in a quandary as to what to do for today. I told Judy yesterday evening, as she was kind of consoling me about the fact that I had to settle from berm riding the latter half of the day, that the whole point of this trip was to get AWAY from the hubbub of vehicular insanity on rural, backcountry roads. Yet there I was right in the thick of it with car, truck, and semi traffic whizzing by me at 55 and 65 mph. What’s more, if the berm is good, any bozo can ride a mt bike on berm, across a county, across a state, across a country for that matter. What the heck’s the challenge of that? That was the same situation I faced in Western Illinois when I had to bypass all the flooding by riding berm on state and federal routes down to the Mississippi River. 

So I just really hate the fact that I have to do this berm thing. BUT….I’ve really no choice right now. I could, I repeat I could just suffer through the sand trap stuff, but to be dead honest about it, I just don’t have the time and money to plod along like that for another week or so gaining maybe like 25-30 miles in a day. Believe it or not there are parameters with which I have to kind of stay within for this trip, and those two are biggies. A couple of the less critical issues involved with tackling the sand trap roads, include my sanity, my physical capability in 90+ degree heat, and putting Judy through my act of self-flagellation just to say I did it.  

After really looking over the KS gazetteer last evening I decided I’d do the berm thing for at least half the day, and test out the non-paved roads as we went south, and then west. I’d try to stay parallel with my original route, so if I found the roads to be changing for the better, I could get back on course asap. I also put my ancient geology degree to work and did a little research on the surfacial geology of this part of KS. And I’ll give you a little of what I’d found. First of all is the problem with the kind of sand I’d been trying to ride through. According to the Wentworth Grain Size Classification chart, I’d gone from riding on gravel/chert and flint road beds when we first entered KS, to riding on a course to fine silty, earthen/clay/silt roadbeds, to riding on course to very course grained sand conglomerates with a clay matrix, to riding on fine to medium grained sand. And the latter is the one that has caused me fits. It’s unconsolidated beach sand. At least in the others there was somewhat of a clay/silt matrix that held the stuff together to pack down hard into a good, solid roadbed. The beach sand - no matrix to hold it together. Turns out this nasty stuff is Cenozoic age dune sands and alluvium.

Next I pulled up some surficical maps of adjoining counties where my route goes through to see the extent of this particular soil composition, Turns out it’s very extensive in Edwards Co, and Kiowa Co, but begins to change to a more favorable soil composition in Ford Co. So having laid all this mumbo jumbo on you, I tell you only because it kind of helped me to guess when I might encounter better suited riding conditions on the backroads. Looked like Ford Co is where the surficial soil has more of a clay matrix - alluvium. So at least I had a bit of hope for later in the day.  

Now with all this being said, I was pretty much tied to the berm riding across the rest of my routed area through Edwards Co, and then also in Kiowa Co. Then I could take a few chances once we entered Ford Co when I’d really turn more westward. Got rolling out of the Do Drop Inn at 7 AM promptly, this because the forecast is for a balmy 99 degrees today. I wanted to be done by 2 PM when it was in the low to mid 90’s. So I hit Rt 183 south and rode this kind of bumpy, but very solid gravel berm that consisted of limestone that was about marble sized to a bit bigger in a fine lime matrix. Perfect compared to the sand traps. Judy hung in the motel and did a wt workout while I rode south. 

We met up with me about 40 min into the ride, and she just drove ahead 3-5 miles at a crack. I was able to at least keep a good 12+ mph pacing on the berm despite a westerly cross-wind. The temp was cool and I was able to really get in a groove despite the thick flow of traffic. But, this road paralleled my route perfectly. I checked a couple east-west trending roads now and then just to confirm my hunch about all the roads being the same sand trap stuff, and I was right - they were just too sandy to try to ride for distance. We made it to Greensburg, or actually just outside of the city in just around 2 hrs. Did a quickie break for hydration, and then I was off again, this time taking a right on Rt 54/400 west. This berm was just awful, crappy, ugly, terrible! It was a  mix of the sand trap soil and prairie grasses along with broken chunks of asphalt and garbage. Couple that with a pretty stiff headwind and it made for just loads of fun. I had to endure this mess for 18 miles to the town of Bucklin. BUT my carrot on the stick was that Bucklin was just over the Ford Co line, where I thought the backroads might be more rideable. I did a little test ride on an east-west road just before entering town, and it was doable, so I was starting to feel pretty optimistic about getting back on track. 

Did a support break there in Bucklin, and then we decided to take 54 out of town just five miles and try to pick back up on my original route. So we met at the junction of 127th and Rt 54, where I went right on 127th, and I sent Judy down the road two miles, where she’d get on an asphalt road north to meet up with me and hear the verdict. I took 127th to the junction with Wildfire Rd, then went left on Wildfire for a couple of miles. Bingo! They were ridable. So I met Judy, and just had her follow me. The roads were pretty manageable for the van. Now this is the time of the day when the heat really sets in - about noon - and then add the wind and the never-ending false flat and I was getting tired, parched and weary each mile we went west. 

I’d been checking my altimeter for the past several days, and I can say that I’ve been picking up a several hundred feet per day since we’ve been in KS. Left MO at an altitude of just around 800 ft. Today I’m at 2500. So this section of Wildfire, this pup must have put in a good 100 ft of gain alone for the day. It was just this stair stepping up over and over. Finally, add the radiation effect of the sun off of the road surface, and well that only makes you feel like you’re in an oven. Thankfully, and I don’t often speak well of headwinds, that headwind really helped to keep me cool. Down side was that I just couldn’t do more than 9-10 mph at any point on that stretch of road. Heck, I consumed a staggering 140-160 oz of liquids over the course of the day, and at least 60 of that came on this stretch of Wildfire Rd. 

Did the miles to go countdown from the end of the day with about 8 miles to go. My mouth was just so parched each and every mile. And it didn’t matter that I’d just injested 20 oz of powerade, 5 minutes later I had cotton mouth. Thank God I had that van so close. We pulled the plug on the day at the junction of Rt 283 and Wildfire, about 12 miles south of Dodge City, KS. I got in 66 for the day, and finished before the heat got intolerable. Then we high tailed it to Dodge City to a Super 8. I swear, these guys love us - Super 8 - as we’ve used them umpteen times on this trip. I should have a free night coming up here for rewards points - I let Judy take care of all the rewards stuff, so she’ll let me know where we’re at with that. 

Sitting here in the motel room with the AC cranking. It’s now 98 degrees out, and will probably top out at 99-100 later in the afternoon. As I’ve said before, the true high for the day out in this part of the US is usually between 4 and 6 PM. I mean it’s blistering hot out right now. I was telling a friend on the phone yesterday, that the weather has pretty much put a wrench in the cog with respect to our trying to do a lot of camping for this trip. It’s either been raining like hell for weeks on end or hotter than hell for weeks on end - but absolutely nothing in the middle. I mean we see people in these little RV parks here in KS, and no one is outside during the day. Hell, they’re all camped out inside their RV’s or Fifth Wheels with the AC on. 

So hopefully I can continue on some ridable roads again tomorrow. The maps I’d looked at show alluvium going west, so that’s at least promising. I just hope there are no little regional aberrations that pop up on us.