Tuesday, June 23: A nice little cool front moved in last night, and at least cooled things down a bit compared to the last several days. Instead of morning temps in the 70’s, they were in the 60’s this morning. Wind was out of the northeast. It appeared that for a day, everything was going well. Ate breakfast and then Judy got me back to the big Sedalia Katy TH, and I was able to get rolling at about 8:10 AM. Jude did a hike while I pedaled southwest to our first support stop in Windsor, about 21 miles off. 

Felt awesome this morning with such “cool” temps to start out in. My God, I wasn’t sweating like a man on death row for a change. Matter of fact I kind of gage the suffer factor by how quickly my arms bead up with sweat. This morning, no beading - just a light glistening sheen. And with that tailwind, oooopa, it was just great. I could just ride no-handed at a good 14 mph and relax. The miles ticked off fast. Cloudy skies kept the sun at bay so life was definitely good. Made the “summit” of the trail just a tad outside of Windsor. And honestly, you can feel that little uphill for nearly 40 miles west of Boonville. It’s there for sure, even though you’ll do little descents in these swales, but then the climbing begins again and just kind of goes on and on and on. 

Just did a powerade at the Windsor stop, and Judy joined me for a piece of riding west for about a half hour. Again, heat just not an issue at this point and that last 16 miles of trail to Clinton were a breeze. I’ve been on this trail 3x now, and this day going to Clinton had to be the easiest due to the lower temps and humidity. In 2011 and 2012 the temps and humidity were just as gnarly as they were yesterday and the day prior. Made Clinton before Judy did, so I continued further on the old RR bed. Now the Katy officially stops in Clinton, but as with many of these rail trails, the old bed just continues on. Sometimes it’s a jungle of foliage, or sometimes it’s a path or trail that people use. In this case it was a single track trail that had low hanging branches and crap that raked my arms and head, but I made it through town and to Ohio St, where I needed to begin berm riding. So then I turned back and rode asphalt back to the trailhead to meet up with Judy. 

Got back and she was out hiking east on the trail to meet me, not realizing that I’d already done more riding to the west on non-trail. So did lunch and came up with a gameplan that I’d come up with last night: I’d take Ohio west out of town and then get on gravel farm roads - this rather than continue on the old RR - which once through town, actually still has rails and this crap ballast that looked horrible in every respect. I’d be much better trying to find gravel out there. And really, after all the gravel roads I crossed on the Katy, I kind of had a feel for looking at the gazetteer and knowing what would be gravel and what wouldn’t. 

Had to ride through a mile of two of peoples front yards and devil strips, and then Ohio St turns into Rt 18, and has this awesome gravel berm for a good 8-9 miles. Then it turns to total garbage where there is a grass/weeds berm with about a 6 inch lip to the left where the asphalt is - tough and dangerous to ride, so I did a few 50-100 yard stretches on the asphalt where the situation dictated. Now there was a road closed sign for Rt 18 west, and Jude was a bit worried about it, but I thought that my gravel roads with kick in before we hit the closure. And I was right, we hit our first gravel road about 3 miles before the closure. 

Went L on 701 and I began this chippy little gravel rollers. Then went L on Division and headed west to parallel Rt 18. Now for those of you junkies who are actually google or garmin mapping this, I’ll go through the litany of roads and then continue with my nonsense. So here you go: L on 901, to R on Rt 18, to R on 100, to L on Division, to L on 160, to R on Rt 18, to L on 14473, to R on 9004. 

So I had to hit Rt 18 a couple times when Division just ended. That made for some going north to go west and then going south to go west, but it did the job and kept berm riding to a bare minimum. And I’ll tell you what….THIS is what I’d been waiting for for the past 7 weeks of riding - beautiful one and two lane gravel roads that stretch on for as far as the eye can see. There were times, when I wasn’t climbing some of these stiff little power climbs, that I was just sailing on the flats at 16-20 mph. It was mind numbing for me to be cruising this fast.

By this time, about 1 PM in the afternoon, the heat was back on, and I was starting to sweat pretty solidly. But no matter, we were cruising. Now there was one road, 14473, that Judy and I both agreed that she not take the van down. It was just single lane, and really loose gravel with a big climb looming in the distance. I mapped her away on asphalt roads for about 10 miles, and I just took my pack with tire tools and my phone and went off on my own. Worked out great, as this little 14473 was doable in the van, but it looked pretty intimidating from a distance. Either way, better safe than sorry with her in that van. I know I’ll be doing a LOT of this from here on in when we hit gravel and dirt areas that just don’t look good for that van. 

I’ve tried to route this thing such that there are always - well almost always - some good parallel asphalt roads for Judy to drive if my roads get real dicy for the van. Otherwise she just drives ahead of me a couple miles at a time. So anyway, when I met back up with Judy I had 76 miles in - and I was still a good 30 miles from the KS line. By now I was just dripping with sweat, and I torn through 2 powerades and 2 water bottles. The time was getting past 3 PM, so I decided to bag it there because we could get a cheap motel in the town of Butler, MO. My exact stop point is the junction of Z, 9004 and 6003, about 12 miles northeast of Butler. And off to Butler we went. 

Oh well, I thought I could make KS today, but that would have put me riding into the eve hours. Now tomorrow the forecast for the Butler area, as I sit here like a Weather Channel junkie watching the latest weather news for Western MO and Eastern KS, is for 96 degrees and high humidity. So it’s back into the furnace for at least Wed and Thurs. My only consolation is that I feel I’m free of the freaking rain and flooding. Well….maybe I shouldn’t count my chickens quite yet!