May 6 -- Great Bend KS to Abilene KS -- made it

Well, I have already called another day brutal, so this must be something else but I don't have an adjective to describe it -- neverending ? that does not capture the day.

So -- Mike did his briefing at 7:30 and basically said that we could leave, gave us an alternate route to take through one town because the center of town was flooded and gave the normal admonitions about taking shelter etc.

We hit the road at 8a.m. -- Geoff, Jerry and myself and completed the first leg -- to the scheduled SAG stop in a reasonable amount of time. The roads were wet, it rained lightly on and off, and black clouds were all around. The winds were favorable for the first leg, seeming to pause for a deep breath -- or perhaps they were figuratively inhaling for the big blow later, but I'll come to that.

We picked up Ian on the way -- he is not quite as strong a rider but did his share of pulling when it was his turn. He's a good guy and good company and there are situations when it is good to have an even number of riders -- I'll come to that too !

At that first SAG we could hear some rumbling, so we hit the road asap to keep ahead of the weather. Alas, since the storms were moving at 40 mph in the opposite direction from the ground wind, that was not to be ... so ... we knocked on the door of a farmhouse to wait out a lightning storm. An old couple graciously let us in and we visited for 15 minutes -- then Shane (the mechanic) pulled up along with Jud's wife (she is here for a couple of days and had a rental car so was helping out today keeping track of all the riders) and gave us the all-clear to take advantage of a small window to get to the next town, 25 miles away. The lead group was already ahead of us and the trailing groups were holed up in a community center by the first SAG.

For this leg, we helped Ian by doing all the pulling -- it doesn't slow you down much to keep track of another person and we wanted to get to that town without having to pull over again -- so we moved it along at 22-23. The rain picked up, started pouring, so Jerry told us to go ahead while he pulled over to put his jacket on. Geoff, Ian and I pulled into an impromptu SAG setup by Barb at a closed drive-in restaurant. The lead group was already there, held for the weather to clear. Time went by and riders that we had passed came in and reported that they had passed Jerry who had gotten a flat after putting on his jacket -- bad luck. Eventually Jerry and all the other riders came into the SAG -- we probably had to stay there 1.5 hours -- getting cold, we were already wet -- and having an early lunch. We were sheltered from the rain but not the breeze -- it was just dumping rain with lightning all around us.

At that lunch SAG we were probably at the 50 mile mark. It was 25 more miles due east to where we were supposed to turn north. Mike finally let us go and we headed out into what had now become a fierce, 30+ mph, east wind. Our pace line grew to about 8 riders and we probably averaged around 11-12 mph in that section. When we got to the north turn the group was gathered at a convenience store -- being held for the weather again -- a lot of lightning beside us, and more significantly, in front of us. Roads were reportedly flooded ahead of us and they were checking that out.

We stayed at this convenience store for over an hour as the rest of the riders came in -- we gave the local business a boost -- we steamed the place up -- 28 riders, all in wet clothing -- you can just imagine. The female clerk had a great time with us -- very memorable no doubt ! Even though it was cool out, she kept having to turn the A/C on just to dehumidify the place. Barbara and Mike scouted the roads, checked with the police on the location of the storms, and finally let us loose again. We have now completed just short of 75 miles and left SR 56.

The next section was rolling hills with that fierce headwind now a crosswind. We rode in pairs for drafting purposes -- Jerry with Jeff Dodd-o (who happens to be his room-mate in a double room); Geoff with ian and me with Phil. Jerry got a flat and jeff waited for him; Phil made a strange move and ended up riding with Geoff and I rode with Ian through the rest of this section, passing all the lead groups -- because they all had one or more flats (reportedly one group that is normally fairly fast had 11 flats). Ian and I got way ahead of the others at one point but I knew that would not last once we turned into the wind again ... and sure enough, after one 2 mile section the larger group of Jeff, Geoff and Jerry caught up to us -- more people = fewer pulls in that headwind. That positioned us for the last leg so that the 5 of us could tackle the last 10 miles into the headwind -- except that we helped Ian by skipping his pulls through that section. Still, 4 is better than 3 or 2. Ian had reasonably done his share when the two of us rode together. The fastest group had passed Ian and me at one point so we were the second group in.

So -- we got into Abilene at 6:15 having left at 8:00 -- 10:15 elapsed time; 129 miles; 7:52 rolling time. It was a long day. We were starved and went down the street to the Pizza Hut.

What did we see today ? lots of flooding; fields that were lakes; ditches that were rivers -- no tornado-stricken areas, just victims of the heavy rains.

Apparently a tornado did strike the Great Bend area early today after we left, so someone was saying. I have not looked at the weather for tomorrow -- one day at a time. The rest after tomorrow's run to Topeka will be welcome.

I took a bunch of pictures today -- but do not have the energy to post them tonight.