Coast to Coast 2022 Adventure Day 24: Kingman, KS to Agusta, KS

This post is part of a series detailing my 2022 coast to coast cycling adventure.

Today’s 75-miler featured a network of several bike trails snaking west-to-east through Wichita.

Day 24 Highlights:

Song of the day: Walkin’ on the Sun by Smashmouth
Start: Kingman, KS
End: Agusta, KS
Distance: 76.7 miles
Elevation: 1,243 ft.
Breakfast: Victorian Lantern BNB breakfast
Lunch: King Chinese buffet in Agusta
Dinner: Boones Pickens BBQ in Wichita

Progress so far: 2,013.5 miles, 65,485 ft. climbed.

The journey so far, with today’s ride in blue

Here are all of the details on today’s ride:

C2C 2022 Day 24: Kingman, KS to Agusta, KS

Daily temperatures well over 100 F appear to be the norm for the next week, if not the rest of the trip. That means starting very early to get in most, if not all of our rides done before noon. It also means having a ready supply of ice, reloading every couple of hours. We have really made the most of hotel ice machines, convenience stores, and truck stops.

It also appears that strong crosswinds from the south are with us well into Missouri.

Before we headed out today, we were treated to an awesome breakfast at the Victorian Lantern BNB of fruit, juice, coffee, eggs, ham, and sweet cream cakes. What are sweet cream cakes? Think pancakes but sweeter, creamier, and more buttery.

Sweet cream cakes with eggs and ham

Rayma is just as good a cook as she is a hostess.

We left pre-dawn again, likely our new norm, and enjoyed a cool, overcast morning.

Sunrise was obscured by the overcast skies, but it was still very pretty

I love being able to see the rain from miles away — this one did not hit us

About a quarter of today’s ride was a west-to-east squiggle through the Wichita bike trail system (check out today’s route). It is a very well-developed system and makes me wish Columbus would do more to develop their trails. Maybe I will do something about that.

Navigating the network of trails, on the fly, at high speed with a visual map on my Garmin GPS and spoken directions from Komoot in my AirPods was a fun challenge. It felt like playing a video game.

This little fella parked himself right in the middle of the trail and we moved him off to the side.

Like Mr. Miyagi said, “walk middle of road, squished like grape.”

I had a bit of a scare last night before bed when I noticed that my rear tire was flat and there was a small cut leaking air under pressure. But I squirted in a bit of extra sealant and it held overnight. Have I professed my love yet for tubeless tires?

Tonight we are in Agusta, Kansas, which is evidently meat country.

Guess I’m not having salad for dinner

Two more days and we ride into Missouri, where it will still be hot and windy.