Friday 18 May - Hills Kansas style

Chanute - El Dorado

98 miles
7 hours and 11 minutes in the saddle
31.8 mph max speed (not possible unless there were some slight hills)
13.6 mph average speed

We have come off the AC route in order to stay in a decent hotel and also to shorten our ride to Newton. The alternative was to stay in Eureka, but the hotels did not look nice so we decided to move on. We stopped for some lunch at a supermarket in Eureka and while we were eating our food in the car park a local on a bike stopped for a chat. He told us he was a carpenter and that he enjoyed riding a bike. He asked us the questions we have become accustomed to: Where are we from, where are we going to, how long will it take and are we crazy. We explained to him that we're from England and that we had taken our bikes on the plane. He was completely overawed when he realized that we had actually been on a plane. Before we left Eureka he warned us about the big hills west of town. We thanked him for his advice on riding conditions and thought to ourselves "What hills? We're in Kansas..." He was referring to the Flint Hills, which are Kansas style hills. They are quite short and are more like humps than hills (and are probably imperceptible if you are in a car). Still, they were steep enough to slow down our average speed and force us to change down our gears.

Weather conditions continue to be favourable, cool temperatures, sunny and SSE winds that push us along.