6 hours 13 minutes to ride 86.1 miles.
Another long day in the saddle today so we took advantage of going to Denny's for breakfast. Came back and brought the bikes down to the parking lot. Barry had to order a new Garmin for his bike as the old one giving him problems. Sure enough the new Garmin arrived late last night so there was not enough time to charge it or read the directions. The old one decided this morning was the day to totally quit. This is the one day where there are lots of mileage points for turns to get us out of the city. Ed led the group out but with lights turns and throw in a narrow bridge it took 50 minutes to travel 9 miles out of Topeka.
Stopped at a store at mile 19 for some chocolate milk to split with Barry. I went inside to get it while he stayed out and talked to the three guys on the stoop. There are always a couple of locals that are interested in what we are doing and more than willing to offer an opinion on anything. Leave there to the first SAG at mile 32.
Leave the SAG and on to the DQ at mile 58. There is not much wind today so we are not fighting a crosswind or headwind which is a pleasant change. There is also some high cloud cover so the temperature is much more pleasant to ride in. We also only have 3,500' in elevation which is just over half of what we did yesterday making it easier as well.
After stopping at DQ (a recovery shake) we have to cross another narrow bridge over the Missouri river which is in very bad repair. There are places that you can actually see through to the river below. They are building a new bridge right next to the old one but, something like the Peace Bridge in Calgary, is taking forever. We make sure we stop at the Missouri state line to sprinkle sand as this is one place I want to ensure we have safe passage through. On to the second SAG of the day but just a quick in and out after we fill the water bottles since we had the recovery shake at DQ.
We are in a stretch of about 20 flat miles and the shoulder could be better but not complaining. We turn on to the SW Parkway which is a road with a parallel bike path that goes for about 5 miles through residential areas of St Joseph. It is nice to be in the tree as the sun is out and it is HOT!
The last 4 miles are through busy streets but we are in early enough that rush hour traffic has not started. We make it safe and sound to the hotel.
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