Friday, July 17, 2009

Day 32: Hutchinson, KS to Ingalis, KS

The plan today was to make it all the way to Lakin, KS, an easy 75 miles that would leave us perfectly positioned to hop into Colorado tomorrow. Unfortunately, it didn't work out.

The day started with a tour of Dodge City.

We didn't really have time to actually see anything, but we did check out the sights from the outside.

We also saw Boot Hill.

Then we were off. Not long after we arrived in Cimarron, where we stopped at a grocery store for a late breakfast. Before leaving town, we flatted. I repaired the flat on the sidewalk, while Jillian took some pictures of a funny looking bug.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just a regular flat. The spoke had snapped at the hub. I tried lining the rim with a dollar bill, to keep it from bumping into the tube.

A few miles past Cimarron, we flatted again. I was feeling very frustrated at the time. Jillian took some photos of horses.

Riding with a broken spoke was painful. The wheel wants to go out of true, making everything bumpy. The bike starts to feel like its going to fall apart.

We desperately needed to find a bike shop. I spent a little bit of time pouting and checking the Garmin to see how much further we needed to limp to get to, well, anything.

I'd just starting to try to fix the bike again when a Kansas State Trooper pulled over, and put his lights on. It turns out that he was a bit of a cyclist himself and that his wife had called him earlier to let him know there was a rather funny looking bicycle on the road. He put his lights on for us, so that the cars would give us some space.

But never doubt Kansan Hospitality. A nice man named Jon stopped by with his truck to offer us a ride in to town.

Jon drove us in to town and brought us to his friend's store, the Tinker Shop.

It didn't seem like much, but inside we found the helpful owner, who dug up a few old spokes in the basement and sold them to us for $1. Jon then drove us back to his place, so that we could do the repairs.

We left Jon's, thinking that maybe we'd ride back to Ingalis and do the miles we were missing. Fortunately, both of us really just wanted to rest and shower. We headed over to America's Best Value Inn and got a room. While Jillian was taking a shower I heard some interesting noise outside.

Hail!

We were so very glad we hadn't decided to try to make up those miles. We walked over to a Lonestar for dinner. A couple of delicious frozen strawberry lemonades later and we went straight to bed.

| posted at: 01:10 | permanent link and comments

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