Kansas Cyclist - Kansas Bicycle Guide and Reference

Team Will (http://www.team-will.org/) is a community of cyclists of all skill levels and ages committed to raising public awareness and funds for childhood cancer research through a mixture of cycling activities and events. The most astounding thing that Team Will does is a coast-to-coast bicycle ride across America. They did this in 2006, 2008 and are doing it again in 2010.

They’ve been making their way across Kansas over the last week, and are due to arrive in Kansas City tomorrow.

The cycling community in KC is now also doing something to celebrate Team Will:

There are a group of cyclists joining Team Will on the 40-mile stretch from Lawrence to Olathe. Not a cyclist? Join us to ‘welcome them in’ at Heritage Park on Saturday afternoon between 2 and 2:30- PM! Meet at the 160th and Pflumm entrance.

We have the route set for the ride on Saturday June 19th leaving from Lawrence and ending at Heritage Soccer Park. We are anticipating to leave either at 11 or 11:30. The time is dependent on the Team Will schedule and arrival in Lawrence. This is an unsupported ride (no SAG cars), so come self sufficient.

Want a longer ride? Ride from Heritage Park to Lawrence and back. Have questions on logistics? Need a ride to pick up car after ride? Contact Phillip Charlton at (913) 530-8302 for more information.

Here’s the proposed route from Lawrence to Olathe via MayMyRide:

Following the ride is an event for the whole family:

Team Will ‘Kickin’ Kids Cancer In KC’ Rally!

Saturday, June 19, 2010, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Blue Valley Northwest High School Performing Arts Center, 13260 Switzer, Overland Park, KS

Come out and join us for a night you won’t soon forget!

Team Will’s plight caught the eye of a filmmaker a couple of years ago. He was SO touched by what this amazing group of guys is doing for children with cancer – the documentary “Go The Distance” was born! (http://www.gothedistancemovie.com/index.html) This touching movie chronicles the journey of Team Will’s 16 cyclists ride across America in 2008. (Read the director’s statement here and why he decided to do this movie: http://www.gothedistancemovie.com/dirstatement.html)

We’re very excited that Team Will is going to be at Blue Valley Northwest High School to have a showing of their documentary…AND a rally against childhood cancer!

After a showing of this VERY special movie, Team Will will speak about what inspired them to begin their group, what they do to raise awareness about childhood cancer and what they’ve accomplished to do just that!

United States Congressman, Jerry Moran, will also be speaking. He was the first Kansas Congressman to join the Childhood Cancer Caucus. You will also hear from Kara Cunningham, who will read a poem about her son, Lane’s, battle with cancer. The poem really puts a voice to what these families have endured with their children’s diagnoses.

You will also meet several childhood cancer patients, families and survivors here in the KC area. Each family will introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their fight for life. These children are heroes who have endured unthinkable medical interventions at a very early age. They are courageous and inspiring and your hearts will be touched by them!

THIS EVENT IS OPEN FOR THE FIRST 800 PEOPLE TO ARRIVE AS THERE IS ONLY ROOM FOR THIS NUMBER IN THE AUDITORIUM – THANK YOU!

Come out and have a fun evening with your family AND see why we’re fighting so hard for these kids to bring awareness to childhood cancer!

Here’s the movie trailer:

Also, check out Team Will Cycling Charity on Facebook.

Here’s a quick look at some of the many amazing individuals taking off on their bikes for tours long and short:

• Bill Harrison is a Lenexa, Kansas cyclist who recently embarked on a long-time dream of bicycling across America. He began on May 4th in Williamsburg, VA and will finish in Eugene, OR on August 4th. Follow his journey on BetterBills TransAm Blog.




• This summer, Erin Renard is riding her bike form Russell, Kansas to New Jersey on her Cycling for Alzheimer’s “Ride for your Life” tour. You can follow along on her blog. See also: Russell woman will ride for Alzheimer’s




• Cross-county cyclists want to ‘outsmart’ brain cancer: Anne Feeley, whose parents live in Olathe, is in the midst of a 4,000 mile bike ride across the country to raise awareness and funds for brain tumor research and support, called Brains on Bikes. In May 2006, Feeley, 55, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.




• Wichita bicyclist raising money to fight breast cancer: Richard Stephens, a retired high school administrator from Wichita, Kansas is riding 1,000+ miles from Wichita to Winnipeg, Manitoba as a fund-raiser for the Susan G. Komen Foundation to help in the fight against breast cancer. See also: Long bike ride makes Wichita State plane crash survivor feel even more alive.




• KU students plan to bike across country to benefit affordable housing: Jillian Strobel will be leaving in June for a two-month bike ride across America. The Kansas University senior will be part of a group of youths riding to raise funds and awareness for affordable housing efforts.




• Murrs Across America: Mom, Dad, and 2 kids from Springfield, Missouri take off on an epic journey across the United States: “Brady wears a cape. Jane has 8 imaginary sisters. We’re biking across America this summer with kids! We’re undertaking this adventure to promote family engagement, health, and environmental mindfulness.”




• Springfield MoDOT Worker Biking Cross Country for Fallen Workers Memorial: Nearly 130 MoDOT workers have died working to make our roads safer and easier to travel, so now Kris Sandgren, a Springfield MoDOT maintenance worker, is taking nearly a month of his own vacation time to help raise money to build MoDOT’s Fallen Workers Memorial. “I carry all my tent, my sleeping bag, air mattress, basically everything I need, and I am going to travel from Anacortes, Washington to Jefferson City,” he said.




• Lincoln, MO woman raising funds for cancer center by biking to Nashville: Freda Swigert, who has battled breast cancer, is biking and walking more than 500 miles to raise money for the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center in Columbia. She left May 19th on a journey to Nashville, TN and hopes to arrive by Memorial Day.




• Retiring priest is ready for his next mission: cycling to fight poverty: Five years ago, Matthew Ruhl, a 51-year-old Catholic priest, was riding a bike on the Katy Trail in Missouri on an early spring day when he had an inspiration. “I would love to cycle across the country,” he said. “And then a thought came to me that I could maybe do a lot of good for somebody.” He plans to ride over 5000 miles from Cape Flattery, WA to Key West, FL, leading the Cycling for Change tour, a call to action for all people of goodwill to address the growth of poverty in America.




• Oklahoma State Student Rides Bike to Alaska: A college student takes going for a bike ride to a whole new level. Oklahoma State University student Curtis Moss took off from Oklahoma last week, his destination, Anchorage, Alaska. A trek that will take him nearly 4,000 miles, Moss is raising awareness about the National Student Exchange or NSE Program, which allows students to study at other participating colleges or universities for a semester or year.

Good luck and pleasant cycling to all!

Here’s a really interesting endurance ride being put on by the folks at Kansas City Ultra Cycling — a “Brevet Tour” running from La Junta, Colorado to Kansas City, Kansas over the course of four days:

May 29th: La Junta, CO or Horace, KS … 200km (125 miles)
May 30th: Horace, KS to Great Bend, KS … 300km (187 miles)
May 31st: Great Bend, KS to Herington, KS … 200km (125 miles)
June 1st: Herington, KS to Kansas City, KS … 300km (187 miles)

Here’s a rough map of the brevet tour:

Here are some details of the tour, provided by Keith Gates of commuterDude.com:

The main purpose of a brevet-tour is to prepare prospective 1,200 and 1,000km riders for the rigors of multi-day grand-randonnee rides, like Paris-Brest-Paris, and the like. The goal is simply to complete each subsequent 200/300km ride within the same time limits as if they were stand-alone rides – but they are all strung together. This teaches mental toughness, preparedness of equipment and body, and teaches hard routines – just waking up and crawling right back on the bike.

As romantic as camping and leisure would be in this scenario, the schedule is pretty grueling. Each brevet has the same time windows as normal, so even though each route ends at a new hotel along the way, conceivably you could be placed into a scenario where you wouldn’t get much sleep, depending on your pace. On the first day, this might not be an issue — but day three-four, it could pose a problem. Better to learn these lessons on a “casual” tour, than on an overseas 1,200km brevet!

The rides are organized by KCUC, specifically Spencer Klaassen, our regional permanents coordinator, and Bob Burns, our regional brevet administrator. Riders are treated as they are on any other brevet: they must be self-sufficient while on the route. But at controls, for a series of rides this spread-out and remote there is some mild support: a volunteer KCUC member has elected to drive the routes and make sure everyone is okay, and carries things like spare wheels and supply duffels, which are only accessible to the riders at prescribed controls. This is similar to how a larger 1,000km or 1,200km route would be run, so it’s also for good practice.

The 2010 Kansas Brevet Tour is part of a larger goal, and riders that are thinking of riding PBP or another grand randonee are wise to take advantage of the opportunity. I expect this will be repeated here next year, as the 2011 ride date gets closer.

There are other places in the country that also do “brevet tours”, but the format is a little different. In Wisconsin and Texas, or example, each spring there is an opportunity to ride an ENTIRE “SR” (Super Randonneur) series of 200, 300, 400 and 600km brevets, respectively, back-to-back, in ONE WEEK.

Appropriately, the event that is held annually in Texas carries the moniker “Texas Hell Week”. It’s a fitting name, as I’ve heard it is especially tough going through the eastern Texas hill country.

For the ultra-hearty, there are only a couple of weeks rest before the KCUC 1,000km ride kicks off on June 12th. Anyone strong enough to complete the “tour” and the 1,000km is truly ready for the challenge of Paris-Brest-Paris, and beyond!

Thanks, Keith!

The idea for the Kansas Brevet Tour is based on the Nebraska Brevet Tour, which was the original of this format, created by Larry Larson. This year’s edition of the Nebraska Brevet Tour takes place September 9-12, and is set up as a big loop, starting and ending in Bassett, Nebraska.

Anyone interested in learning more about the sport of randonneuring can visit Randonneurs U.S.A. (RUSA), which manages and promotes the sport in the United States.

In 2006, the Adventure Cycling Association awarded Gillian Hoggard of Ordway, Colorado their June Curry Trail Angel Award. “Gillian provided food, drinks, a warm shower, and free lodging to bicyclists along Adventure Cycling’s TransAmerica Bicycle Route, making her home a welcome oasis on the hot, dry, and windy high plains of eastern Colorado.”

In 2008, much of the town of Ordway, including Gillian’s home and property, was destroyed by fire. Gillian vowed to rebuild, and now she’s done it:

I recently received notice that Gillian is back in the saddle again as a cyclists’ only lodging host. In her note she tells me that she has “invested in a 30 foot trailer/caravan in English speak… for cyclists to use while enroute.” No need to have her address to find the place when you arrive, “when they ask [for Gillian] in town it will work…small place…and many more now know of this stopover for cyclists…even with this ‘prehistoric’ method I still get tons of people.”

Read more from the Adventure Cycling blog: Cyclists’ Only Lodging: Ordway Trail Angel ready to serve again

Welcome back, Gillian!

Photo courtesy Craig Sternagel, via Biking Bis.

You don’t see too many bicycle tourists on the Trans-America Bicycle Route this early in the year. Even if a cyclist can make it through the cold, there’s always the possibility of cold rain, ice, and snow to contend with, and that’s before even thinking about the Rockies, where mountain passes are often blocked by snow well into April or even May.

But as I was passing through Pittsburg, Kansas over the weekend, I stopped in to talk with the folks at Tailwind Cyclists, and there I met Andrew Powell, who’s pushing the envelope a little bit.

Andrew started in Yorktown, Virginia in early February, just in time for some of the largest snowstorms in decades:

Charlottesville, Virginia.

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Preparing to cross the Mississippi River from Illinois to Missouri.

Andrew in Pittsburg, Kansas.

By the way, in many of Andrew’s photos you’ll notice his mascot, Grommit (of Wallace and Grommit fame). Andrew says that Grommit has been very popular with the kids along the route.

And helping kids is one of the main reasons Andrew is doing this trip. He’s raising money for Great Ormond Street Charity, which enables Great Ormond Street Hospital to provide world-class care for its young patients and their families, and to pioneer new treatments and cures for childhood illness. The hospital is located in Andrew’s home town of London, England.

You can follow Andrew’s progress, and donate to his cause, by visiting http://www.justgiving.co.uk/Andrew-Powell.

You can also contact Andrew via Facebook, or via his event page on Facebook.

Andrew’s doing this trip self-supported, sleeping in campgrounds and city parks along the way. He’ll be passing through Kansas this week, so if you see him along our highways, stop and say hello and offer him a little hospitality.

Good luck on your journeys, Andrew! Hope Kansas treats you well.

Biking Across Kansas, the annual week-long supported tour across the Sunflower State, has announced their 2010 route:

The tour leaves Syracuse, near the Colorado border, on Saturday, June 5th, and arrives in Leavenworth, on the Missouri river, on June 12th.

The route covers about 478 miles, with overnights in Goodland, Colby, Hill City, Osborne, Minneapolis, Herington, Osage City, and Eudora.

Learn more at the Biking Across Kansas web site.

Wheels for Wells is a ride across America this summer to raise money for clean drinking water for thousands of people in sub-Sahara Africa.

Unsafe water and a lack of sanitation cause 80% of sickness and disease in Africa. Every 15 seconds, a child dies from diseases in dirty water. The statistics are both alarming and concerning, and also what motivate us to make a change in the world. The reality is, the disease and sickness that result from a lack of clean water are totally preventable. That’s why Wheels for Wells is committed to bringing clean and safe drinking water to developing nations in Africa.

The Wheels for Wells ride is a cross-country bicycle tour, starting in Dana Point, California on June 27th, and ending in Ocean City, New Jersey on August 7th.

Here’s the route map:

The ride is split up into six weeks:

• Week 1: June 27 to July 2, 592 miles from Dana Point, CA to Cameron, AZ
• Week 2: July 3 to July 9, 487 miles from Cameron, AZ to Walsenburg, CO
• Week 3: July 10 to July 16, 485 miles, from Walsenburg, CO to Emporia, KS
• Week 4: July 17 to July 23, 476 miles, from Emporia, KS to Mt. Vernon, IL
• Week 5: July 24 to July 30, 529 miles, from Mt. Vernon, IL to Martin’s Ferry, WV
• Week 6: July 31 to August 7, 421 miles, from Martin’s Ferry, WV to Ocean City, NJ

Wheels for Wells is actively seeking riders for the tour. There are slots for 10 riders for the full route, and 15 riders for each week of the ride.

If you’re looking for a well-supported bike tour for this summer, and would like to take a trip that would not only be fun and challenging, but can help to make an important difference in people’s lives, please check out wheelsforwells.org. Rider slots are still available.

The Santa Fe Trail Bicycle Trek rolled out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on September 13th, heading northeast along roughly the same route as the old Santa Fe Trail.

The riders rode through New Mexico and Colorado, and entered Kansas on September 20th. For the next week or so, they’ll make their way through the Sunflower State, overnighting in Lakin, Dodge City, Larned, Sterling, Hillsboro, Council Grove, and Baldwin City before exiting the state on the 28th on their way to Independence, Missouri, and ultimately to New Franklin, Missouri where the trail begins (or, in the case of the cyclists, ends).

This is the 15th year for the Santa Fe Trail Bicycle Trek, which takes place one every two years and attracts riders from all over the world who want to relive a bit of the old west and learn about the history of the trail and its role in western expansion and the opening of “The Great American Desert” to European settlement.

Each rider pays $40 per day, which pays for breakfast and dinner, camp sites and showers, daily ride sheets and maps, and a truck to carry their gear. Each night they camp out, to keep expenses low, and take a day off every fifth or sixth day to rest and explore sites along the trail.

The Trek doesn’t follow the Santa Fe Trail exactly, because the exact route is either lost or on private land, but follows it as closely as possible while keeping to paved public roads. The entirety of the route is approximately 1100 miles, with 17 days of riding and three rest days. They ride an average of 64 miles a day, with the longest day being 85 and the shortest 21.

If you’re interested in doing this tour in 2011, you best sign up quick — they cap the number of riders at 50!

If you’d like to learn more about the Santa Fe Trail Bicycle Trek, visit the tour’s web site. You can also read a ride report from Californian Dick Kniepkamp, who rode the Trek in 2005.

Did a quick Twitter search, and found a number of Biking Across Kansas riders tweeting as they ride across the state. Here’s a live feed:

If I’ve missed any BAK tweeps, please let me know!

(By the way, these are consolidated using the @bak_tweets Twitter account. This is just a temporary account; don’t bother following it, as I probably won’t be posting from there…)

2009-06-14: Since BAK 2009 is complete, the tweets above are no longer live. But they’ll give you a glimpse into the last day of the ride…

Sad news from Biking Across Kansas, the annual cross-state bicycle tour of the Sunflower State. According to a news report from Wichita’s KAKE:

Hamilton County authorities say one of the Bike Across Kansas riders may have suffered a medical condition Friday afternoon.

He collapsed about a mile from the Colorado border.

Emergency crews rushed him to a hospital where authorities say he died a short time later.

The man’s name and age have not been released.

We’ll follow up with more info as it becomes available…

See also: Biking Across Kansas 2009 Preview