O' so windy

Today was our longest day by at least 10 miles. We actually ended up doing 108 miles, over a period of 14 hours and over 9 hours of riding time.

Just to fill you in on yesterday, we covered 85 miles and as towns/services are getting few and far between, last night was the first time we stealth camped. We found a field and set up our tent...simple as that. It was however a very hot and humid night, so not the most comfortable sleep. Anyway, this morning we decided to take a bold step and get up at 6, so that we could ride the long distance of over 100 miles to Macpherson, KS, all in the light. It has to be said riding at 7 is very nice. It is cool and pleasant and the traffic levels are low. After breakfast, at roughly 10am , we were really hit hard by the wind, and i mean really hard. The wind was coming from a south westerly direction, and for over 3 hours we were heading straight into it. To put it into perspective we covered 20 miles a shade under 3 hours, so working really hard and moving at half our normal speed. In addition to this we really did not anticipate how sparse the landscape is. No services for about 50-60 miles indicates this. So there were a couple of times where we were very low on water and food.

Due to the lack of towns, we eventually lunched at 4pm, having covered 80 miles. Luckily the winds shifted slightly in the afternoon, so it was no where near as hard as some of the morning. The last 20 odd miles were not too hard, however after 100 miles and 9 hours of riding the mind is tired the legs are tired and my knees are sore! But(a big but) 108 miles is a very long way and it is a good chunk closer to our final goal. This evening we are staying with some friends of friends, so a nice welcome after a very long day.