Sun Aug 31st, Hot Sulphur Springs, CO -> Walden, CO

Every day that passes I have been wondering if we will see any more transam bikers, as we are getting late in the season. Today we met a biker from New York as we were breaking camp, on a recumbent bike. He claimed that since he was from New York, he would have no trouble sleeping near the train tracks. Of course, we couldn't put that to the test since he got a hotel room clear across town. I'm sure he slept just fine there.
Shortly after starting on our journey we ran in to an Australian couple (Scott and Liz) on their way to Kremmling. They liked to go about 45-50 miles in a day, but got on the road early, so I think they were enjoying their time.
After setting up camp in the city park in Walden, we saw two more bikers heading to setup camp there as well. Haven't talked to them yet, so more on them later.

Sat Aug 30th, Silverthorne, CO -> Hot Sulphur Springs, CO (60 miles)

Excellent russian food at the Stagecoach B&B. Shake'n'Burger in Kremmling was not as good as Five Guys, but better than one of the brewery burgers we had.

Fri Aug 29th, Breckenridge, CO -> Silverthorne, CO (20 miles)

Breakfast again at the Blue Moose Cafe, then headed downhill for the Pearl Izumi outlet in Silverthorne. We met another biker there, West-East, chatted for a while, then decided to get lunch. Since it was getting on, we decided to rest in Silverthorne and make Walden the following day. Much Law and Order ensued.

Thurs Aug 28th, Breckenridge, CO

Rest day. Had breakfast with Annette at Blue Moose Cafe, dinner at Backcountry Brewery in Frisco.

Wed Aug 27th, Breckenridge, CO

Rest day - had breakfast at the Crown Cafe, drank coffee, and enjoyed free wifi till the evening. Met up with John Forensic for dinner at the Dillon Dam Brewery.

Tues Aug 26th, Guffey, CO -> Breckenridge, CO (69 miles)

Crossed Hoosier Pass, the highest point on our trip and discovered that Guillermo's batteries were dead. Only camera phone photos. We met our first host from warm showers, Annette, when we arrived in Breckenridge. She was an amazing host - she let us stay two rest days! More to come:)

Mon Aug 25th, Florence, CO -> Guffey, CO (42.5 miles)

Sat Aug 23rd, Eads, CO -> Pueblo, CO (119 miles)

Riding through Arlington... Colorado, that is.

I bought a book on identifying wildflowers and trees. Staring at the same trees and flowers all day, it would be kind of embarrassing to not be able to name even one of them by the end of this trip.

One of the zillions of sunflowers in Eastern Colorado.

The sunflower family is one of the most evolutionarily advanced flower families in North America. The "petals" are actually rays, and the brown center is actually a collection of a whole bunch of mini-flowers, each with their own petals and ovaries. The sunflower is a compound flower. Bet you didn't know that!

Nice lady who gave us RO water and free electrolyte thingys.

Is it getting little cloudy?

It started to get cloudy in the distance near the end of the day, as we were approaching Pueblo. We began to see some major lightning, and when we were about 11 miles from our destination, I said to Aaron "You think we should put our rain gear on now?" "Not yet, we'll get too hot in it. Let's wait till it rains." Approximately 12 seconds after this exchange, raindrops the size of my saddle sore begin to pound us, while the raging winds from hell blew us over and made it nearly impossible to walk our bikes - let alone ride them - to the shelter of the abandoned house across the street. Under the shelter we put on our rain gear and waited out the storm. There was some intense cloud-to-cloud lightning, which kept us entertained while we waited. It was bad enough that cars were pulling off the road as well. Once the rain died down a bit we biked the last 11 miles - make that 15 once you count riding around town looking for our motel - to Pueblo Colorado. By the time we showered, ate dinner and went to sleep it was 1:00am. What a night!

Fri Aug 22nd, Scott City, KS -> Eads, CO (106 miles)

breakfast : imitation grape nuts with milk
lunch : chef salad aka cheese + ham + wilted lettuce. good honey mustard though
100 mile snack : beef stick (aaron), 5 starburst superball (gmo)
dinner : don't get me started

the first 25 miles we fought a pretty bad headwind so we stopped for an hour at the gas station in leoti. we met Kevin there, the local youth pastor, who bought us coffee and rockstar. very nice guy who has done bike kansas and wants to go cross country one day. picture coming asap.

Kevin, a Kansas youth pastor, bought us drinks at the gas station.
Heck of a nice guy.

After leaving Leoti, the wind lessened a little, or at least gusted from a variety of directions so we started to speed up. The last 10 miles before we hit Tribune were actually fairly calm weather. Since it was the last stop before 58 miles of no services, we took a lunch break. Sure enough, the wind was back when we started biking again. After only a few miles though it started to shift from the South West to the North and ever so slightly East. In other words, we picked up a small tailwind. We were cruising along pretty nicely when we encountered Sheridan Lake. The auto shop that sold sodas was no longer selling sodas but a brand new gas station had appeared in its place. We ran inside and grabbed a few drinks - Gatorade, v8 fusion, and of course, rockstar. Upon leaving we started discussing how we should make a commercial for rockstar. Almost the instant we left the gas station we were racing along at 20-25 mph and kept the pace for about half an hour. Yep, tailwind + downhill can't run forever. Still, it was nice to see what a few hundred feed could do for the trip. In the Appalachians 200 feet of vertical descent is wasted on your brake pads, but this was so gradual we rode it for just over 10 miles before we had to climb back. Oh, we actually gained about 1300 feet in elevation today - at 4200 or so right now, which is the highest so far.

Grain Elevator + House of Guy Who Runs It
= A Western Kansas Town

After the only diner in town screwed up our order we were so tired and upset that we decided to get a room at the econo lodge rather than pitch our tents in the dark. Not sure how dinner managed to take 2 hrs, but we want to make up the time somehow.

Fellow touring cyclist.
His wife was too exhausted to talk,
so they declined our offer to join us for dinner.
Or maybe we smelled bad. Can it be both?

Thurs Aug 21, Ness City, KS -> Scott City, KS (~60 miles)

We were on the road by 9:20 and excited by the prospects of completing our second century. Alas, Kansas is back to normal. After 4 hours of 10.8 mph average, we abandoned hope of making our goal of Tribune when a gust of wind actually knocked Guillermo off the road. I've got to go hop in the shower, so you'll have to wait a little bit to hear about the virtues of manure trucks.

Wed Aug 20th, Nickerson, KS -> Ness City, KS (130 miles)

What a day. We'll have to write more later. Excellent breakfast, candy from strangers, picking peaches in the middle of a city, best sandwiches of the route, pitching tent in the dark. What's missing you say? Showers perhaps? Ride time: 9 hours

Tues Aug 19th, Hutchinson, KS -> Nickerson, KS (12 mile)

We planned to go further this day but after dropping off the rental car and trying to attach my new handlebar bag, it was getting late. It is a 58 mile stretch of nothing after Nickerson, so we decided to stay at Hedricks Exotic Animal Farm. It's every bit as cool as Anna thought it would be. We're sorry that she missed it, but I think we'll have to come back and play with the kangaroos again.

Mon Aug 18th, Ft. Collins, CO -> Hutchinson, KS

Sun Aug 17th, Denver, CO -> Ft. Collins, CO

Sat Aug 16th, Denver, CO

Fri Aug 15th Hutchinson, KS -> Denver, CO

Thurs Aug 14th, Newton, KS -> Hutchinson, KS ( 40 mi)

Coming soon: Anna and Tony's last day of riding, Braum's most delicious concoction, Guillermo's new double kickstand.

Wed Aug 13th, Emporia, KS -> Newton, KS (77.1 mi)

Coming soon: 82 year old Mennonite man faster than Anna, German bread, and clean water.

Tues Aug 12th, Ottawa, KS -> Emporia, KS (65.9 mi)

Coming soon: firehouse hospitality, ice cream, and margaritas

Mon Aug 11th, Kansas City, KS -> Ottawa, KS (36.43 mi)

Thanks to a late night in Lawrence, KS we woke up just before checkout, packed up, and headed to get some food. Unusual for us, we split up; Tony and Aaron got some delicious Mongolian BBQ while Anna and Guillermo were stuck with omelettes from Mimi's Cafe. We returned the rental car and reclaimed our bikes from the back of the firestation in Louisburg, KS. The 30 miles to Ottawa fell in record time and we entered town at 6:30. Tony is in the shower right now, then it is off to Sirloin Stockade for some food.

Sun Aug 10th, Kansas City, KS

Sat Aug 9th, Kansas City, KS

Fri Aug 8th, Harrisonville, MO -> Kansas City, MO

We woke up late today but managed to get packed in record time. After our standard breakfast of pancakes, french toast, bacon, biscuits, eggs, chocolate milk, and coffee, we started looking at the map. Aaron immediately seized on Ottawa as a likely candidate to offer more than a gas station. He consulted with Google and realized that although it isn't in Canada, it is a large town relative to its neighbors, so at around 1:30 we were on our way. So, despite waking up late, we were on the road at the usual time.

About an hour in to our riding we made it to the Kansas border and we stopped for a photo op (posting later). At this point the GPS had an arrival time of 5:50 so Aaron was sent ahead to procure a hotel room for the night, and more importantly, get ready to take advantage of Super 8 Motel's Olympics promotion - it required signing up at 7:00, so no time to waste! Aaron made it to Ottawa a few minutes early and called back to check on everyone's progress. Alas, it was not to be. Guillermo broke his rear wheel (one of the nipples snapped and popped out!), and decided that this was our last excuse to visit Kansas City - location of the nearest bike shop (and delicious barbecue). Off to Enterprise and Kansas City!

We drove to KC and immediately began our search for barbecue. The GPS led us to Arnold Bryant's, one of the original barbecue joints in Kansas City. When we arrived, however, we found ourselves staring at a giant casino instead of a dirty barbecue joint. It turns out that Arnold Bryant's is a chain, and one of the spin-off's is located inside this casino. Did we drive all the way to KC to eat at a second rate spin-off location? Hell no. HELL NO. We do have standards (although somehow we were suckered in to eating at KC Masterpiece's restaurant in St. Louis, and it certainly is a piece). We consulted over the telephone with our friend Jim who informed us that Oklahoma Joe's was the most highly regarded barbecue in KC. We drove across town and walked in the door at 9:26pm, just in time to be the last customers of the day and were rewarded with the best ribs, fries, and pork of the trip. Much better than last night's in Harrisonville - that brisket was an insult to barbecue everywhere. To anyone traveling to Kansas City, try Oklahoma Joe's!

Thurs Aug 7th, Windsor, MO -> Harrisonville, MO (56 mi)

Wed Aug 6th, Versailles, MO -> Windsor (52 mi)

Pancakes, eggs, french toast, hash browns, and toast for breakfast. No biscuits:( Aiming for an 11am departure.

Tues, Aug 5th Jefferson City, MO -> Versailles, MO (38-44 mi)

Today we passed through Amish country (no, they're not just in Pennsylvania), with rolling hills, horse-drawn carriages and a pretty sunset. Pictures to come soon.

(Begin Amish rant)
At a gas station I saw some Amish people - probably Mennonite actually, which comes from the Dutch word for "Amish poser" - buying slice pizza, coffee and glazed donuts. Hmmmph! As I always say about the "Amish" people at the market in Burtonsville, MD, they are just playing the Amish game. Shame on them! Frankly, these half-assed Amish people piss me off. As the saying goes, anything worth doing is worth doing right. Are you Amish or what? Put down the artificially flavored French Vanilla coffee and mechanically-separated beef sausage pizza, get out of that gas guzzler, and ride your carriage back to your barn where you belong. Or - better yet - drop the schtick and admit that being Amish sucks.
(End Amish rant).

For dessert we had the best pie of the trip so far - blackberry cobbler. We're looking forward to Newton, KS though - it's supposed to have the best pie on the TransAm route, according to Cesar and Gaby. This same restaurant tonight had some terrible potato salad though. Why was it terrible? It was Amish style, of course.

Mon Aug 4th, Jefferson City, MO

Guillermo returned the car and picked up batteries from Radio Shack while Anna got her brakes fixed at the bike shop. We decided to head for Versailles, MO (that's "ver sails"); only 35 miles or so, but we were getting a late start and there didn't seem to be much else for 60 miles after. We started on our way to Subway and Anna found that her bike was pulling to the right. Bad news. Maybe crashing at 18 mph isn't so good for steel frames (or Anna). Upon closer inspection at the bike shop (with help from my parents), we found that the steel fork was bent. Luckily there is a frame builder in town; unfortunately he's closed Monday. So, we headed to find some food and happened upon a real gem at "The Daily Grind". For anyone else visiting Jefferson City, that's not "The Daily Grind Unwind". We found air conditioning, 1554 (beer from New Belgium Brewing Co), the best spinach dip we've ever had, and the best turkey sandwiches yet on the trip. The sandwiches were actually made with Milton's Bread, which is mine and Anna's favorite bread. We haven't seen it since we left. At the Daily Grind we ran in to Allan, another touring cyclist. He is making his own route across the USA, and is doing it alone. Kudos to Allan. Like us, he enjoys good food, good beer, and AC, which is what brought him to The Daily Grind. He took a picture of us and put it in his own blog, so we will do the same for him:

(Picture of Allan coming soon)

Sun Aug 3, Jefferson City, MO

Yesterday we had our first bike crash as Anna fell in to the side of the road. Luckily she landed in the mud and not the pavement and has no road rash, merely bruises. And unfortunately we have no pictures of Anna covered from head to toe in mud (we were too concerned for her safety to reach for the camera). Still, we thought it prudent to take a rest day (the local news was attempting to issue a heat advisory). After breakfast we found out that our friend Cesar from Caltech was doing the TransAm West -> East with his girlfriend, Gaby. We immediately rented a car and 5 hours later we were on our way to meet them in Marshfield, MO. Once they showered it was off to Springfield, MO for some dinner, catching up, and exchanging tips and rest stops.

For anyone not looking at a map, that's about 5 hours driving round-trip, so we slept in till 8:45 am today. Now, we must pack up and head to the bike shop, so more updates later. In the meantime, check out http://fleethecube.com/transamerica/.

Hermann, MO -> Jefferson City, MO (50 mi)