My son and I will be joining 800 suddenly close and personal friends on the 475-mile Biking Across Kansas tour beginning this weekend.
We signed up for it at least five months ago, and I can't believe the time is here.
Although many of the “across-state” bike tours only chew off a chunk of a state, B.A.K. truly heads from one border to the other. In this case, it's always from the Colorado to Missouri border in hopes of catching the summer's prevailing winds.
Fond memories
One reason we're heading to Kansas is because I have such fond memories of this place from my cross-country bicycle tour 27 years ago. Many strangers offered to help us, take us in, or direct us to free camping at city parks as we crossed the state.
In fact, we were asked more than once if we were part of Biking Across Kansas back in 1984. The annual bike ride dates back to 1975, and we hit the state about the same time as B.A.K. began that year.
Is it flat? Yes. Is it boring? No. Trolling along at 12 mph gave us plenty of time to appreciate the scenery, small towns, and roadside attractions of the Great Plains.
I can only recall two negatives, the winds and the thorns. We headed westward in 1984, which might explain our battles with headwinds. Our eastward route might solve that problem.
Also, I remember getting regular punctures from small thorns scattered across the road that worked their way through the tires. I'm hoping that my upgraded Gatorskin tires (augmented with Mr. Tuffy's in the rear) will be more durable than the general merchandise store tires I used on my first ride.
The route
The B.A.K. bike tour starts in Tribune, named after the New York newspaper owned by Horace Greeley, who urged: “Go West, young man!” Tribune is the county seat of Greeley County, which also has a small town named Horace.
The route violates the Greeley mandate and heads mostly due east across the state, passing through many towns I remember from that TransAmerica bike tour — Tribune, Leoti, Scott City, Bison and LaCrosse (home of the famous Barbed Wire Museum).
It ends in La Cygne, which takes it name from the French word for swan. The river, Marais de Cygnes River, is the French translation for the Osage name Marsh of the Swans. [More below map]
View Biking Across Kansas 2011 Route in a larger map
Some of the roads
I recall that Kansas roads follow the straight and narrow. Especially in western Kansas, I could look down the road and across the landscape and see the next town in the distance.
Our first road is Kansas Highway 96. It was named back in 1910 for the telephone number of an auto parts store in Wichita. Apparently the owner had posted the distances between towns on the state's major auto trails, so the state allowed him to pick a route number on the trail he'd posted with the most signs.
We spend the entire first day of cycling, and part of the next, on that one road.
A couple of days later, we pick up US Route 56, which runs between Springer, New Mexico, to Kansas City. It was created in the mid 1950s under intense lobbying by the Mid-Continent Diagonal Highway Association.
US Route 50
On the 6th day, we ride 20-some miles along US Route 50. Except for a couple of exceptions (in Georgia and Washington state), I've lived most of my life close to this highway.
US 50 stretches from Ocean City, Maryland, to Sacramento, California. It was first named in the mid 1920s, and included the Lincoln Highway, Midland Trail, and National Road; a section in Nevada is known as the “Loneliest Road in America.”
Unfortunately for the B.A.K. cyclists, the section between Strong City and Emporia has been “improved” with rumble strips that run the entire width of the shoulder. Apparently someone didn't read the manual when these were added to the road, as there are ways to install rumble strips without impacting bicycle riding.
Tallgrass
This part of the ride passes through Chase County, the subject of the book “PrairyErth: A Deep Map” by William Least Heat Moon, who also wrote “Blue Highways.” He writes about the people in this part of the Flint Hills, their history and their battles.
Among other things, he writes about the fight to conserve some of the prairie land that once covered this area. I see those efforts must have been successful, as the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve has been established just north of Strong City.
The rest of the route passes north of the old TransAmerica Bicycle Route, so it will be unfamiliar territory. As with any bicycle trip, we'll just take it as it comes.
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