Date - August 7th, 2020

Current Location - Pueblo, CO

Miles Traveled - 2,367

Great Bend KS to Pueblo CO. One road, and 335 miles. This section is honestly a blur, like a vivid daydream, flowing in and out of consciousness while traversing the same shoulder, and passing small towns that all begin to look the same.

The conditions were absolutely perfect to cover an absurd amount of mileage. The thunderstorms of the previous section gave way to a beautiful week of 75 degrees and sunny, which is a miracle considering the typical July highs exceeding 100 degrees. Adding to the perfect weather, we caught the ever so elusive tailwind through Kansas. While it’s true that prevailing winds blow from west to east, local weather is entirely unpredictable. We rolled the dice, and hit the jackpot, sometimes cruising at 20mph with minimal effort.

Our view on route 96 for hundreds of miles.

KACO Buck-80

A quick note on the group dynamic. Since the beginning of this trip, John has had big aspirations to push it. At the beginning of most sections, he will run off to study the maps, returning with some ridiculous plan. “Yeah yeah yeah, I’m thinking 3 days to get through Kansas, just a 200 miler here and a 175 miler there, no big deal.”

John, probably thinking about a double century ride.

Jake is totally unpredictable. Some days he will subject himself to the mid day heat just for fun while we all wait until the evening to ride, and other days he will take it easy. If John sways him towards the wild side, he is the first to accept a challenge.

When we leave these two alone, their ideas and aspirations often snowball out of control, starting reasonable and ending with something like, “Let’s just bike until we fall over.” At a small town gas station early in the ride we made the critical mistake. I caught bits and pieces of their chatter while warming up my apple fritter, then returned to see their smug faces.

“Soooooo you know, the Colorado border isn’t too far away, we could be finished with Kansas today.”

Fully knowing what “isn’t too far away” could mean to these guys, I asked, “How far...”

“Haha, 150 miles from here, 180 on the day,” said Jake.

And that was the birth of a legendary race, the “KACO Buck-80” only completed by two brave souls since its founding on August 1st 2020. If you dare to attempt it, the race starts by the grizzly bear enclosure at the Great Bend city park, and ends with your tent pitched under the Colorado State sign.

The night before we had only gotten 4 hours of sleep, so Jason and I were on the more conservative side, with a plan to finish the day with 120 miles under our belt.

The big sky was totally clear through the morning, then we started to see some friendly puffy clouds on the horizon while rolling into Dighton KS, for lunch. Most of the towns along this long stretch of route 96 are tiny, and there was only one restaurant here, an outdoor ice cream and burger spot called Frigid Creme. As we waited for our double bacon cheeseburgers, something devilish was brewing in the sky.

The clear blue was now hidden by an increasingly darkening cloud that might not be so friendly after all. The forecast didn’t call for rain, but the mid day darkness was telling us otherwise. As the wind picked up, the sound of swaying trees consumed the town, shortly followed by the pitter patter of rain on the corrugated metal canopy of the creamery. Very quickly things got out of hand. We were surrounded by blasts of lightning, and the pitter patter turned to a relentless beating on the metal roof as the rain tuned to nickel sized hail. We shot up from our seats and stood side by side, pressed to the wall of the small restaurant trying to stay dry.

Our server ran back out with the $50 bill I handed her moments before. Frantically, she screamed over the sound of the storm, “TAKE YOUR MONEY BACK, THE WHOLE TOWN JUST LOST POWER, THE BURGERS ARE HALF COOKED, I CAN RUN YOU OVER TO THE STOREHOUSE ACROSS THE STREET FOR SHELTER.” Oh boy, we thought she would be calmer than us, doesn’t this happen all the time? We opted to stay put, and eventually the storm passed, leaving us icy, wet, and cheeseburgerless. With no obstructions in the vast open plains, we could see the massive system making its way to the next town, preparing its surprise attack.

We got so lucky to have been under a canopy at that moment. We very well could have been caught in the middle of nowhere, with no shelter, getting pelted by hail and tossed by the wind, as the towns at 30 miles apart on avarage. We need to be careful out here. By the time we left the creamery, the roads were already dry. The western side of the town was hit hard, with plenty of downed trees, and a telephone pole snapped right in half, causing the power outage. Piles of white ice lined the streets despite the bright sun beating down on the asphalt.

Broken telephone pole on the outskirts of town.

After 17 hours and 180 miles on the road, Jake and John reached the Colorado border, while Jason and I enjoyed bison burgers after our “short” 120 miler. The KaCo boys were in bad shape after their lack of sleep, and monster ride. To make matters worse, unexpected rain arrived in the morning, and John hadn’t set up his rain fly. He woke up with puddles in his tent, and a wet sleeping bag with no way to warm up. From his tent, Jake heard, “dude, everything is wet, I’m so cold, I’m leaving.”

The Traveler

Jake was comfy and dry under his rain fly, sound asleep beside the big “Colorful Colorado” sign, until he heard a rustle in the grass that woke him up. He unzipped his tent to see another weary traveler on a bike, with a dogs head poking out of a pannier. “Howdy,” the traveler said while propping up his bike on the sign. He is an older man, with gray hair and a beard to match, sporting dark shades with side shields making for a goggle like look. I’m not sure what it was exactly, but you can tell he had been on the road for quite some time just by looking at him. He laid out his tarp next to Jake’s tent, and they started chatting. From 60 miles east, I got a text.

”Yo, I’m still at the sign, met this dude and we are talking mad conspiracies.”

Under the Colorado state sign chatting with the traveler.

Four hours later, Jason and I rolled up to the state line to see Jake and his new friend still lounging in the small patch of shade under the sign. The traveler went on and on about his experiences biking for the past 13 months, and told us stories about the days when he worked day and night on a tug boat traveling across American ports. With every story, he turned his paper atlas to the relevant map to jog his memory. As the sun moved up in the sky, our patch of shade got smaller and smaller. Eventually, he dove into conspiracies once again, talking about aliens harvesting us and giants living in Antarctica. We got his name, but thought it was better not to share. He is hiding from something, or someone, totally off the grid. No street address, no phone. Just him, his bike, his dog, and the next town.

The gangs makes it to Colorado. From left to right, Jason, Jake and Chris. ( John is down the road in Eads.)

Small Towns (Written by John Plenge)

We finally regrouped with John in Eads, and spent the night in a mid-section hotel while he recovered from a slight cold brought on by the events mentioned above.

On a small side note, anytime we are blessed by the presence of a hotel/motel, we prepare to wake up at the precise time in order to claim the highly sought-after “double breakfast.” The double breakfast takes time to perfect, and with the kindness of hotel staff allowing us to stay far past our checkout time, we essentially fill our stomachs and panniers for an equivalent of two days worth of food from those singular complimentary breakfast’s.

At the start of this section, we consulted “the literature” (our attempt at adding an aire of sophistication to the trip by referring to the loose pamphlet of maps we depend our lives on) and noticed we pass through some towns with a population below 50. This was an overstatement as we soon found. After Eads, we passed many of these “towns” however, one particular town caught our attention, but might not catch yours due to its minuscule representation on any map. Arlington, Colorado, has two town-limit signs no more than 200 yards apart. As they say, and we’ve been told, one blink of an eye, and you miss so many of these towns. This was truly the case, as the only characteristics of a town present in Arlington was a small farmhouse, a cemetery, and a picnic table. Traveling along and witnessing the start and end of the town limits in less than a minute proved that we were truly entering a new, and desolate environment. As quickly as it arrived, it was gone, and onwards we went.

Wild Wild Weed (Written by John Plenge)

And upwards. Naturally, as a disclaimer, we indeed have had a few things in mind about Colorado, one being the obvious legality of substances we’re not accustomed to back home. We made sure to arrive in Ordway before one certain shop by the name of Wild Wild Weed closed. We arrived, dazed and confused as we entered into a new business prototype, the likes of which we’ve never been patrons of. Long story short, all our wildest questions had been answered, ranging from general interest of the vegetation available in their catalog to whether they had ever been harassed by federal agents. We had a moment to laugh (au-natural), outside of the fine establishment, at the simple fact that we just bought weed legally for the first time.

Ordway Hooligans (Written by John Plenge)

We made our way to a local city park and found the company of a lone basketballer jamming out and shooting hoops after dark. With a nod of acknowledgment and nothing more, we made ourselves at home in the adjacent pavilion and picnic table. We cracked open our take out dinner containers, and all was silent save the occasional bounce of the b-ball, and our four chewing mouths. With my head buried in food, I heard a young voice, the origins of which were unknown. I looked up. “Hey, hey you all the biker dudes right?” Said as if the news of our presence had already made it around the town gossip circle.

Enter in, the Ordway hooligans. A group, not so different than ours, except by age, approached us and immediately made themselves at home by clambering onto the raised concrete slab we had put our bikes on. “You tryin’ to rap battle?” Exclaimed one of the new attendees to our dinner. Immediately we all turn around and spark up some conversations with the youngest group to approach us during the trip. 4 guys in one group, 4 in another, a blurred similarity could be made between the two groups of kids with almost no idea of what lies ahead.

The Wind

On our way into Pueblo, we split up again. Jake and John opted for a longer ride, and extra night in the city, while Jason and I took our time, stopping at the tiny settlement of Boone, CO for the night.

Sand Cherry Coffee in Ordway, CO. I sent this sketch to the owner and got a free smoothie!

A scene from the back patio of the cafe.

It was already dark when we arrived, and there was no plan in place regarding the whereabouts of our slumber. Boone is a one sided town in the middle of the dry dead plains of Colorado, with train tracks on the right, and a short stretch of one story buildings to the left. The light inside the post office was the only sign of habitation in the strip, but the door was locked.

After debating a few locations, we settled on setting up the tents in a narrow dead end ally way between two structures in town. As we set up, gusts of wind from the vast openness surrounding Boone filtered through, each gust stronger than the last. While enjoying my cold can of Dinty Moore beef stew I noticed the slight rumble of the ground followed by the familiar blair of a locomotive.

I stepped out of our corridor to watch as the railroad crossing barriers descended across the roadway. Next came the train, absolutely barreling through, bringing with it a massive gust of air. I looked back at my tent. Oh no… with stew still in hand, I sprinted to my fabric home, which was seconds away from initiating lift-off. Had I been a moment slower, my tent, sleeping bag, wallet and phone would have been tumbling through the Colorado countryside.

The crisis was averted, but I found myself in a peculiar situation. I couldn’t move. The persistent winds seemed set on snatching this tent away from me, and the risk of removing my hands for an instant was too great. At this point I realized we were in a wind tunnel. My intuition led me wrong in thinking a spot between two buildings would shelter us from the wind, in reality, we were caught in turbulent air, as vortexes wrapped around the structure.

The problem was, I still couldn’t move. With the force of the wind, The thought of shifting my tent to the front of the building was unfathomable. I crawled in, and hoped for the best. With each gust of wind, I extended my arms and legs to the far corners of my tent in an effort to stay on the ground, like making snow angels, but with more fear.

From his adjacent tent, Jason yelled, “duuuuudeee this isn’t good, check the radar.” I waited for a break in the wind, then whipped out my phone. On the weather map, I saw a massive red dot with radiating arcs of orange, yellow, then green. We were in the green, and I’m about to get blown away in 25 mph winds. I REALLY don’t want to find out what red is. Over the next hour, I watched as the colorful blob on my screen moved, knowing full well that it could kill me. I heard scrap metal on the other end of the corridor rustle. If a gust gets a hold of that, it could fly through this wind tunnel and rip us apart. I looked back at my screen, and the red dot began to veer slightly away from us. Luckily, we dodged the worst of it, and lived to tell the tale.

Section 6 - Route 96