Hi there and happy Monday!  Today marks one month since I started this amazing adventure in Oceanside.  Time sure does fly when you’re screaming across the U.S. at 12mph

Today was a nice short day, my shortest day in fact since the very first day of the ride, 30 miles. I’m in Columbia to meet with bike folks and to have a little New Belgium Partay, yeehaa! I haven’t had a rest day in two weeks so I’m a happy boy.

I said goodbye to Mark the Crazy Viking today, what a cool guy he is. I’m very impressed and honored that he took off a weekend of work to come out and ride with me (from Kansas no less). We celebrated our two day adventure with a couple beers at a local brewpub in Columbia and then his nice wife showed up to drive his sore body home.

Now I’m staying with Steve, another bike loving/athlete/commuter dude. He just took me on a tour of the campus, very nice place, almost as pretty as CU.

Videos coming soon, I promise….Happy Sunday!

I’m in love with Katy. She may be flat, and a little dusty, but she protects me from the big bad cars and trucks. I think we have a good future together.
I’m riding the Katy trail now for the next 200 miles, all the way to St Louie. It’s a converted railroad and goes through all sorts of neat little communities along the Missouri river. This is the ultimate bike path, it’s safe, easy and full of services.
I have another ride along partner too. Mark, the ‘Crazy Viking’ as he calls himself, came to Clinton last night from Lawrence Kansas. He heard about me from the New Belgium site and decided that he wanted to have a little weekend adventure with Duzer. He’s one tough dude, did I mention that he’s 60 years young? I can only hope that I’ll be in as good a shape as him when I get to that age.

We’re camped out now in Franklin, a TINY community with HUGE mosquitoes. My stomach is full of bean and ice cream, heaven! Good night

Check out the article in today’s DailyCamera

Missouri is beautiful! It’s been raining like crazy and now the Ozarks are bright green and bursting with flowers. And the best part, it was only 82 degrees today! Pure riding heaven.

So my goal was to get to Clinton today, 100 miles from Fort Scott Kansas. I knew it would be a tough goal, especially since I’d be leaving the flatlands of Kansas and hitting the hills of the Ozarks. The first 60 miles were pretty smooth as I had a mild crosswind, no big deal. But then I took a left turn north and that crosswind became a direct headwind, bummer. It was a very long 40 miles. My head was down most of the time as I pedaled, which gave me a good view of the dead Armadillos, and there are lots of them. Dead box turtles too, such as sad scene along highway 13

I finally made it to Clinton at 6:30, much later than my usual stopping point. All I could think about was food so I headed to the historic downtown. As I limped slowly around the square, looking for a nice restaurant I met Art. Art turned out to be my angel for the day. He pointed me to a great little local pasta joint and then invited me to stay at his house in the country.

I’m writing this as we all (his family and kids) sit around a big bonfire. It’s very cozy. I’m loving the Midwest!

I’m loving life here in Kansas! I’ve actually really enjoyed everyday in this flat, basketball loving Midwest state. Yes it’s been hot, and yes it’s been windy but 99.9 percent of the people I’ve met are so nice! Hats off (or helmets off) to you Kansas!

I think my picnic table last night was the best yet, it was made out of that recycled plastic stuff, much cozier than the traditional, splintery wood. You wouldn’t believe it, but yesterday I ran into 5, yes FIVE other cross country bikers. Seems that the little town of Eureka is a hub.
I connected best with Larry, he’s 65, and ex marine and hates Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cause he thinks they’re communists. Doesn’t sound like my kind of guy right? Well he had some funny stories, like falling over five times because he couldn’t get out of his pedals and painful moments of sitting on a seat that “felt like sitting on an acorn for 8 hours” ouch!

He’d never ridden his bike further than 40 miles before this trip, and this trip wasn’t even his idea. His buddy set it all up, and four days into the ride, he busted his knee, leaving Larry all alone. But Larry being the tough guy he is, decided to stick it out. I don’t know if he’s having fun, but he’s determined to finished. Unfortunately Larry snores like a freakin lawnmower, kept me up all night (see video).

I hit some hills today, yeah, real deal hills! It was fun to mix up the terrain a little bit, flat for days gets a bit boring. I also went through some neat little towns too, but I can’t help but fear for these little gems when I see 50% of shops closed. I’ve never seen so many boarded up storefronts in my life. I blame it on the recession and evil chain restaurants moving in, putting the ma and pa shops out of business

I’m five miles from the Missouri border, yeehaa, get ready for a Happy dance tomorrow!

My final kansas video:

I woke up this morning with really sore quads, sore like I’d just run a marathon, or biked 1600 miles…I was considering staying and resting for a day in Wichita, but then I just got too darn excited to get back on my bike…I’m weird, I know.  I did take it easy in the morning, enjoying a nice breakfast with Rebecca as we watched the Today Show.

Yesterday was 107, and today a ‘cold’ front came through and cooled it down to a reasonable 90. I was loving the cloud cover, it was a very welcome force field between me and the sun. It actually even rained on me for about an hour, usually I don’t like riding in the rain but this was a very welcome shower, What a glorious feeling!

I met some other cross country bikers on the road today. Larry, an older man who has calves the size of Hercules, and Bennet a young guy who goes to school at Penn St. It’s always fun to meet other bikers and share stories from the road.

I’m camped out in a park in a tiny, run down town called Eureka.  The park does have plenty of playground games so I’ll be able to keep myself plenty entertained tonight.

I’m half way to DC, yeehaa! And in honor of this occasion, I’m going to guilt you into donating money to Community Cycles, see video.

It was ding dang hot today, 105! Record temps for this area, lucky me I did manage to cool off though in a small town called Garden Plain. There isn’t much going on there but they do have an amazing little drive in Frosty Treat! (Which was featured in the movie Twister). Can you guess what I got? A cold chocolate shake, and Limeaid to top it off.

So I’m in Wichita now, I was planning on skirting around this city to the north but I got a random call from a nice guy named Greg last night and he seemed excited to meet me. So here I am, with Greg and his wife Rebecca, a super cool young couple! Greg loves bikes, even though this town SUCKS for biking. He met me on the outskirts and safely got me to his home, a nice air conditioned home.

Here is today’s video…be sure to check the one below it as well.

And here are the kids!

And here is more proof that Community Cycles rules!

I’ve been warned about the impending humidity many times by many people. I knew it would come, just not overnight! Yesterday was a nice DRY 105, and today was a nice WET 95, what a difference. My clothes were soaked all day, and wet shorts creates extreme chaffing, Ouchie!

The winds changed direction too, the past two days it has been at my back, today it was either a crosswind or headwind all day. It was an unpleasant double whammy of heat and wind! No me gusta

I did have a fun surprise today though, my cameraman buddy Matt from a Fox station in Oklahoma drove up to film a little package about the ride. I think he’s gonna win a Pulitzer for it It was fun to see him for a short bit, but our time was cut short as he had to run back to film a Meth lab bust. Boo Meth, yeah bikes!

Oh, and next time I think it’s a good idea to eat an entire pizza by myself, please stop me. I thought I was gonna throw up all afternoon after our big lunch in Greensburg.

And guess what I found at the end of the day once again? A HUGE swimming pool! I love ending my days with a refreshing dip. And it doubles as laundry time, I just jump in with all my clothes on and PRESTO! Clean clothes…kinda

This morning was tough, not only did I have to say goodbye to Team Bobalicious, but I had to say goodbye to Boyer, my trusty riding partner for the past week. They all chanted ‘Ole Ole Ole’ as I waved goodbye and headed off, it pulled at my little heart strings. It’s tough not having someone on my side to ring my bell with and nobody to sing goofy songs to

So Kansas is flat, I had one hill today, maybe a 200 foot climb. My body needs the break though, the hills of NM just about burnt out my quads.

I really like it here, each small town has serious charm and lots of friendly people. And another thing I’m really beginning to like are all the community pools! It seems like every little town has one, and it’s a great way to cool off in this heat, it was 105 today, Aj aj aj!

I’m camped out in a little community park, right next to the swimming pool in a small town called Meade. For dinner I went to Bob’s Hamburgers and got a grilled cheese, two of them actually, and some Tater Tots and a chocolate shake, yum! And the best part about this park is that the picnic tables are extra long, my feet won’t hang off the end, Hooray!

Here’s a video with all the fun from yesterday’s Four State Extravaganza!

So my buddy Bobalicious and his lovely fiance Missalicious showed up last night with a truck full of ice cream and snacks. It was a much needed treat after a long and hot day on the bikes. And when I say he showed up with ice cream, I mean he showed up with like three gallons of amazing Boulder Ice Cream!

And another fun surprise, this morning I was informed by Bob that he’d be taking our trailers in his truck to Kansas! Yes! No heavy trailers to drag, awesome! Bob also said that he’d be joining us on the ride while Michelle drove the chase vehicle. Bob looks good in spandex by the way

He couldn’t have picked a better day for riding, it was SUPER easy. Downhill with a strong wind at our backs…all day long. I thought I was in a dream land, way too good to be true. We were averaging 19 MPH, not having the trailers probably helped quite a bit.

When Bob’s ass got too sore, he swapped riding duties with Michelle and as a team they made it to Elkhart Kansas no problem!

The landscape is no longer desert, I’m in cattle/corn/farm country now.  We actually went into three states today, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. We did some serious happy dancing as we crossed all the borders!

Today also marks the final day riding with Boyer   It’s been an honor to have him with me this past week. It’s not often that you get to experience something this unique and special with your favorite high school teacher. I’m a lucky boy! A big thanks goes out to his family for letting me borrow him this past week.  Daddy will be home soon Annika and Dale!