BAK 2019 – An (br) easy day

I went to bed last night looking forward to an easy day of riding – with relatively flat roads, little to no wind, that, if it blew it all, would serve as a tailwind.

When I woke up, it was clear that wouldn’t be the case. Instead, we spent most of the day battling a fierce headwind that sometimes gave us relief by pushing us around as a crosswind.

All in all, it wasn’t a terrible day. I’ve ridden in worse, as have most of the people who are on BAK this year. But it was draining, and at the end of the day everyone seemed pretty exhausted from a day of fighting the wind.

Unfortunately, tomorrow doesn’t look any better. Despite nearly every day of Kansas summer’s featuring our notorious south winds, tomorrow, fate has turned against us in an ugly way: Most of our route runs north, while the wind is projected to blow from the north. All. Day. Long.

Sigh.

But we’ll all do what we do and find a way to make the most of it. At the end of it all, we just have to make it to the next town – Minneapolis – by sundown. I have no doubt in our collectively ability to do that.

To help ourselves against the wind, we took a lot of breaks, didn’t get in too big of a hurry, and stopped at as many places as possible to take in the scenery. As is usual, the towns made the struggle worthwhile. Russell has a number of fun features set up as we rolled through. And Wilson – our stop for the night – met us with free muffins, music, and iced coffee. I couldn’t have been happier about that.

When the riding is hard, we talk a lot on the road. We listen to music. We stop at playgrounds and act silly. My friend  paid a couple of local kids a dollar to push us on  merry-go-round. So we ended up dizzy for a bit, and laughed about it.

The point, of course, is to get to the next town. But if the route is difficult, it makes sense to find ways to force a little fun from the path. We have become very good at this over the years.

This stretch of road also contained a considerable number of really cool churches, including the Cathedral of the Plains, in Victoria. I’ve enjoyed spending time in a number of these churches, and considering what an important part of life faith must have been for those who settled in these sometimes unforgiving conditions.

Tomorrow is a long ride – 65 miles to Minneapolis. And, like I said, it looks like most of it will be uphill and against the wind. But I’m sure there’s a merry-go-round, or nice scene to enjoy, some good food somewhere along the route, and of course, good company.

Happy riding.