Start
Larned, Kansas
Finish
Herington, Kansas
Mileage
132
By Bruce Wood
www.biggreen alert.com
HERINGTON, Kansas -- Veteran cross-country bicycle riders call it “The Myth of the Prevailing Westerly Winds.”
They know you can take whatever the weather historians and their charts and their graphs say and toss it all out the window. They know, the science be damned, that when you are riding east the wind is going to be in your face more often than not. Much more often.
So it was for Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens for much of the first week of his ride from San Diego to New Hampshire. So it was again yesterday after a glorious, one-day respite.
“I don't know if I haven’t been living right or what, but the wind gods haven't been kind,” a very tired-sounding Teevens said Tuesday night from Herington, Kan. “I figure my luck has to change. I’ve had one good day with (former riding partner David Shula) and yesterday. That’s it.”
Teevens’ Tuesday was made more dicey by less-than-ideal road conditions as well as the first real rain of his trip.
“It was probably one of the hardest days of cycling I think I've ever had,” he said. “I've never had a bad day cycling but this was one of the less pleasant ones.
“It was all crosswind at best, and 80 miles of it was on two-lane highway with about a three-foot shoulder. The crosswind and the cattle trucks were just nonstop.The worst was at (Route) 77 north from Marion. It was blowing completely in my face the whole time. My first 28 miles took me four hours. I kept wondering when it was going to change but I just ground it out.”Teevens jumped on his bike at about 7 a.m., in Larned, Kan., and realized soon enough that this day would be quite unlike the day before, when he covered 185 miles.
“It was raining when I started,” he said. “As nice a day as it was yesterday it was cold and nasty. I got a little bit wet. It was in the 60's all day, so it would have been nice, but getting wet wasn't nice. It was one of those slogs. I was just trying to get through it.”
And then there was that road.
“If you get those 12-foot (shoulders and breakdown lanes) it's great because you can look around,” Teevens said. “But you get those three-footers with the wind and you've got to be concentrating to not get knocked into traffic or off into the soft stuff. I've never had to wrestle my bike before. With those cattle trucks going back and forth, one sucks you in and the other pushes you the other way or blasts you the other way.”
Given the challenges of the day, Teevens didn’t have the opportunity -- or inclination -- to hop off the bike and visit the few high schools he passed on the way. He was relieved when he got to Herington and put himself on the outside of a delicious $3 turkey sandwich made by a woman named Mary. While gobbling down the turkey (pun intended) he met a local character named Arnold.
“He was ancient of the town,” Teevens said, enjoying the story in the retelling. “He was sitting there reading a newspaper and said, ‘Hey young fella. Where are you from and what are you doing?’ He said, ‘You are riding a bike that far? Why?’ ”
Teevens’ answer for the ages: “Just because.”
Cold, wet and tired, Teevens asked the old man if they had a hotel in town.
Teevens: “He said, ‘Yeah, if you need one.’ Then it seemed like it took him about 25 minutes to tell me how to get there and it wasn’t much more than a left and a right.”
Teevens planned to be up early this morning hoping once again for that mythical westerly wind.
“If I could get another one like I did with Shu it would push me right across the plains,” he said dreamily. “They say it’s totally flat going east. If I get a good day I can run from Herington right into the Overland Park area and be in Missouri tomorrow.”
NOTES Teevens put in a call to Bill Kuharich in the Kansas City Chiefs front office and may stop by the NFL team’s headquarters if time permits. Teevens got to know Middlebury grad Kuharich, the former director of player of the New Orleans Saints, when he was the head coach at Tulane. ... Mike Monahan, whose son Jack ‘09 is catcher on the Dartmouth baseball team and who lives in Overland Park, touched base with Teevens about helping him out in the Kansas City area. ... Teevens reports that David Shula had a hard time finding a room the day before his flight out of Dodge City because of the emergency workers in town.
COMING UP Teevens’ route from Kansas City to New England will be posted later today. Keep in mind it is fluid and he’ll surely be making small changes along the way.
Today's Map
Princeton's co-championship football team has developed a strong religious presence according to the Daily Princetonian. Luke Steckel, co-captain of the 2006 team, told the school paper:
"It got to the point where more people were praying than there were getting ready in the locker room — and that was pretty cool."Lafayette is wrapping up its stadium renovation/field turf/varsity house project just ahead of Dartmouth. The Patriot League school, which mulled a drop to Division III not many years ago, has absolutely done it right. The new facility is stunning. An old, crumbling stadium has become a gem. Visit this photo gallery to see the impressive result.
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