Day 39, July 5

Chanute to Pittsburg, KS
61 miles

I was originally planning to reach Golden City, MO but a minor issue arose.  My rear gears had been making a bit of noise only in 1st and 2nd gear and I stopped at a bike shop in Pittsburg.  It turned out to be a very minor adjustment that the shop in Pueblo missed and it was looking like I would be back on the road in 15 minutes but the tech making the adjustment noticed that my rear rim had half inch or so long cracks extending in both directions from almost every spoke hole. It looks like I will be spending the rest of today and possibly all of tomorrow here while a new rear wheel is built. My phone camera does not take the best close-ups but if you zoom in on the picture below you might be able to see cracks extending from the spoke hole of the spoke that the reflector is mounted on.

The bike shop lent me a loaner bike while they are working on mine. It is a sad little thing with linear pull brakes, which I dislike. Since it is not set up for touring I had to decide what I really needed for the night and pack it into my two smaller bags before heading off to a campground about a mile from the bike shop.

Sad loaner bike with half my gear:

I guess I shouldn't complain since there are probably very few bike shops that have loaner bikes of any sort.  Just the same I will be happy to have Lily back sometime late tomorrow.  Yes, I gave my bike a name when I bought it. Doesn't everyone?

The ride from Chanute to Pittsburg went well. It was insanely humid but otherwise good.  The heat index was 103 around lunch time.  I have found that the humidity isn't that big of a deal.  Although it feels a bit icky I don't need to drink nearly as much water as I have to in hot and dry areas.

There are now some rolling hills. In a day or two I will enter the Ozarks, which I hear will mean several days of steep but short ups and downs.

A few pictures from the day appear below.

This was the site of the first school in Kansas.  I ran across it a few miles before the town of Walnut.

This was taken looking toward downtown Walnut.  I think the building on the corner is an abandoned gas station that the town apparently grew grass around to make the lot slightly more attractive.

Below is a very small house I saw on the eastern edge of town. It appears to have been made from a large storage shed.

That is all I have for today since Walnut was pretty much the only thing on my route between Chanute and Pittsburg.  Actually,  I did also go through Girard, where I got lunch and did my laundry.  I didn't take any pictures there though.