A very early start out of Sabetha KS, from the worst motel we've stayed in, just awful, seemed like nothing had been done to the room in forty years, cleaning and all, the broken vending machine added little distraction from what was quite a depressing overnight stop. We had been forced to stay at this motel by the general lack of availability of rooms and motels in the area (and that's a big area!), there is not a lot out here and the towns are small, few a far between, tomorrow will be much the same but we've managed to book a motel in advance, just a case of reaching it on time. By comparison, the one we are in tonight in Phillipsburg is virtually the same price and a delight to stay in, no frills, just clean and welcoming, shame there's a 6.30am start for the rider tomorrow morning, ideally placed right on Highway 36, now thankfully a single lane road.
The view of the early morning sunrise on the opposite side of the road offered hope of a good day riding to Phillipsburg, 170 miles with around 3,000 feet of rolling road profile! How wrong this would prove to be on what turned out to be the worst weather so far, alarm sirens going off in most towns by mid morning, welcome to Kansas, storms, winds and tornado's!!
Highway 36 parallels the Kansas/Nebraska border line just five miles to the North, for most of the morning what would have otherwise been a reasonably straightforward push through 80-100 miles of rolling road was given added risk by the bad storm rolling through North Kansas and across Nebraska. I watched the sky more than I watched the road, the line between a clouded sky and a magnetic blue storm sky was clear, right above and following Highway 36. Before coming out to the US we had read that blue magnetic skies turning purple means one thing, tornado's and storms, and anywhere but on the road. It duly came, first the storm, roads flooded and then the lightning strikes clearly hitting the road in the distance. After hearing warning sirens in a town further along the Highways James brought the support car back East, there was only one option but to get off the road, cycling is the last thing you do out here in these conditions, in fact most traffic had cleared the Highway by this time. 25 miles in the car was the only safe option driving through to Mankato to wait in a diner for the storm to pass, seemed to be what most locals and drivers were also doing.
After that, it was back on the bike for the last 50 mile push to Phillipsburg, the day changed completely, the skies cleared and what had been a cross wind changed to a slight tail wind, the ride was almost effortless, for the first time in two years since riding the Tour Stages it was again like riding with wings, averaging over 26 mph all the way through, it was a pleasure to be on the bike, possibly the biggest pleasure since being out here, hopefully this will continue tomorrow.
The early start goes straight into the Prairies, just 15 miles into the ride, we had a sneak preview this evening of 'Prairie View, well sign posted in town, we watched the sunset, before riding out of the sunrise in a few hours time.
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