DANG, if you missed this one, you missed a good, no, great one..... the weather for July in the Flint Hills was outstanding. It was not HOT, it was windy, a little, from the NORTH..... so riders had a tailwind back to Madison instead of the 30 mile headwind we thought they would have.... go figure. I think the temp in the morning was in the middle 60's and only got into the upper 80's.
The first rider made it to Madison a little after 12:30 pm. He was still walking and talking in complete sentences. It was the most peculiar thing and one we are not used to. Many riders were almost giddy and just wanting to know if the pool was open for showers....
I was the keeper of the gate as far as the cutoff goes and the cutoff time was 11am with all riders making it to my spot by 10:30 am. Now honestly, only 3 chose to do the short route but there were around 20 to 30 of you (and you know who you are) that should have taken the shorter route.... Total rider count was 162ish.
The long route was 83 miles, that is a lot of dirt..... and the short was around 53.
We had fantastic support from Madison. The town bought and put up a banner across Main Street with "Welcome Bikers" on it just for us.....We had local volunteers from Madison at all of our sags to help us.... and the ATV guys were with us again having a ball and providing support. The local pool extended their hours for us and so did the local cafe. Wow, I could sure feel the love. I haunted the local grocery store making enough trips there in 2 days to be accused of being a local. We located everything downtown this year and next year the park adjacent to the Library will have hookups for RV's I believe....
This ride has evolved a bit from the early days, but it sure seems to be just as pretty and it is still a challenge no matter what the weather. It was the greenest and wettest I have ever seen in those hills, so wet Paul and I did not do one of the water crossings and we were in the car....
Join us next year and watch this blog each month for updates.
Do it in the dirt.
Jim
DEATH RIDE 2010 July 24th and 25th
Sunday, August 16, 2009
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