BAK 2019 – Goodland to Hill City, by way of Col(d)by…and beyond

One of the struggles of trying to write and publish from the road on BAK is access to, or lack thereof, of good internet service. So I had to miss a night when I couldn’t get on the school’s internet. Oh, and the evening was also interrupted by tornado warnings.

Then, when I had good internet at Hill City, I was too tired to write. I fell asleep with my laptop in lap, and decided it was time to give up for the night.

The ride from Goodland to Colby was a relatively easy 40 mile ride. The terrain is mostly flat, with a decent number of those uphill stretches that seem to last forever. MItch said today that when you’re biking up them, just when you think you’re at the top, you realize there’s more uphill to go. And that’s pretty much the truth.

The ride between Colby and Goodland, however, began with unseasonably cool temperatures – 50 degrees early Sunday morning. The wind was strong out the north, so we dealt with a crosswind from the North. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen many north winds on this ride before, so it was a somewhat new experience. Someone told me a joke once that in Western Kansas, when the wind wasn’t blowing all the cyclists fell over – because they had spend their entire lives leaning the south on account of the wind. After two days of leaning into the south wind, it was an adjustment to lean into the north wind.

By the afternoon, however, the clouds parted and the temperatures warmed for a lovely afternoon of riding. That evening, talk turned to what the weather might bring for Monday – with predictions that the temps would fall into the 40s in the early morning hours.

That happened, but without a harsh north wind, it didn’t seem so bad. We headed east toward Hays, and it might have been one of the most perfect riding days I’ve ever experienced. The wind was largely calm – if it blew at all, it blew in our favor and provided a tailwind. There were hills (there’s a reason it’s called Hill City), and that’s always a challenge. But it’s not so bad when there is beautiful terrain and interesting towns to visit.

On Monday, we visited Nicodemus, Damar, Palco, and Ellis before reaching Hays. these towns are filled with stories and history, interesting people, and in some cases beautiful architecture. I”m still amazed when I roll into a small town, and see something that shows me at one time in its history, it never had the intention of being small.

One of the best parts of BAK is the people I meet along the way. At lunch on Sunday, I met Deborah and Mike. She is originally from Ulysses, but lives in the Seattle area. He is from Kansas City, but lives in San Diego. Mike mentioned that he does work in Antartica. He studies marine life and tracks changes in that part of the world. I will spare you some of the details – but basically, he sees things we don’t see. And it’s not awesome. Deborah talked about growing up in Ulysses, and how her life unfolded once she left Kansas. They return every year to visit family, and sometimes they manage to ride BAK. I was glad they chose this year, and that I had the change to meet them.

In Hays, I had the chance to meet up with my friend Eber Phelps, and Jenny Burgett. We managed to get together for dinner and spent some fun time together later in the evening. I always enjoy when I get to connect with people I haven’t seen in a while, and share some time with them.

I’d probably write more tonight, but it’s late and I’m pretty tired. Today’s ride was great, but it was 65 miles. And that came on the heels of a 67 mile ride that was cold and windy. That can take a lot out of you. Tomorrow’s ride is only 48 miles to Wilson, so that should be pretty nice – so long as the weather holds.

I can’t really stress enough how much fun it is to be a part of this experience. There are so many fun people, who have done incredible things, and with whom one can have interesting conversations. Aside from the riding, this factor makes the experience all the richer.

Mitch is killing it this week. He’s getting stronger by the day. In fact, today, he just left me behind and rode how he wanted. I sometimes spend too much energy worrying about him, even though he keeps proving to me over and over again that I really have nothing to worry about. He’s a good rider, who is able to manage himself on the road.

So that’s a couple of days worth of updates in one post. I’d like to post more, but between the sometimes sketchy internet, the fatifgue, and the fun, I sometimes struggle to fit it all in.