Garden City, Kansas

A new state, a new time zone, another century behind us, and over 2000 miles into the trip we reached Garden City, Kansas today.

I would describe today as nothing less than EPIC, no we didn't ride 130 miles or climb 8000 ft. but we crossed the half way point of our trip, and while passing train cars this morning I thought the photo couldn't be more suiting.

EPIC

I love the early morning photos!

Today we had Bryce and Kyle who's families fixed us dinner last night join us for the first 20 miles of the ride. Our project manager decided today that we could up our pace lines from 4 to 6 which makes everything move much faster for both the crew, and the cyclist since were now dividing the time pulling by 2 more people. We made great time averaging nearly 25 mph for the first 2.5 hours with an awesome tailwind; we went the whole 102 miles before lunch and really had a great day on the bike.

Paceline's of six. Awesome!

Kansas! The paceline minus Bryce who turned around early to go to work
(left to right, Kyle (ride-along), Ben, some guy, Mike, and Trevor

Matt attempted the Ironman challenge today which involves not unclipping all day, and makes going to the bathroom, filling water bottles, and stopping at crew stops every ten miles difficult. His paceline helped him out and held him at stops while bottles were filled and took care of him, he was doing really well until mile 82 when he got a flat and had to dismount. Bummer!

Team Ironman, Matt (from VT on the bike)
(left to right. Issac, Brian (Kankles), Matt, Bobby, Max)

A day in Kansas wouldn't be complete without a photo in a cornfield!

We arrived at a local pool where media was waiting to film our arrival and we had an opportunity to go for a swim. Everyone enjoyed cooling off after a long ride and an awesome lunch from leftover burrito fixins' from the night before.

After our swim we all loaded up in the vans and headed off to lodging. We stayed in a comfort in that had Wi-fi, a pool, evening snack time, and a hot breakfast which we planned on taking advantage of; all amenities that are a big deal for us these days.

Another Century, they're cake these days!

A sponsored dinner at the Golden Corral was a real treat and when the guys heard buffet it definitely made every one move faster on the road. After dinner we capped off the evening with a trip to the movies where we got in for half off because the gentleman working the ticket counter used to work at a school where the team had performed Kids on the Block puppet shows several years ago.