We had twelve riders with four new riders. After meeting up at Quivira Park and doing introductions we decided to change the route from the Stump Park with SMP Loop to a new one that I have been working on that goes down to Spring Hill, Kansas. We did this because I thought we would work into the fairly strong 15-10 MPH wind on the way out and keep away from the approaching thunderstorms since the original route went north first. The temperature was in the high 70's, but as it has been for several days now, it was very humid.
I mad a few errors on the way down as I did not turn off S. Brougham Road onto 159th Street then when turning around should have turned west on 161st Street. But we got over to Mur-Len Road and went down the route I had been mapping to Spring Hill. We SAGed at the gas station we had stopped at on the Wednesday morning ride on April 14th although I want to find a different location as they have ice but don't have tap water unless you ask them to go into the backroom.
Joe noticed on his handheld PDA telephone that the thunderstorms were moving in faster than expected so instead of heading a west, as I had planned, we hightailed it back to Quivira Park via Ridgeview Road and 143rd Street. As the skies darkened we knew that we were going to get dumped on and that we did from before 151st on Ridgeview Road back. To add insult to injury the wind also shifted from the southwest to the northwest so back into a headwind! We got split up but all got back to either homes or Quivira Park to their cars. The rain continued until about 2:00pm so I felt for all the Biking Across Kansas riders who had to finish in the rain on their final leg into Leavenworth, Kansas.
Hopefully next week we will have better weather! How about some lower humidity too. The map of my ride which includes mileage on a short warm-up ride from my house can be downloaded from my Garmin.
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