This past weekend I was fortunate enough to ride in the Dirty Kanza 100. For those of you uninitiated, the Dirty Kanza is a self-supported bicycle race that travels the back roads of the Flint Hills. Started in 2006, it has grown significantly since its humble beginnings. The DK now attracts thousands of riders from literally all over the world. The main event is the 200 mile ride and takes the fastest gravel cyclists in the world 10 hours to complete. For the rest of us, it takes much more.

Now I'm not going to wax rhapsodic on the beauty and majesty of the Flint Hills. Far better writers have done so in great detail. But if you've never spent a weekend in the Flint Hills, I'd strongly recommend it. They are unlike anything else in the world. In fact, the Symphony in the Flint Hillsis coming up in a couple of weekends. It's a great place to start.

I rolled in to Emporia around mid-afternoon, meandered around the vendor expo, and got my swag bag. I caught up with some friends In had a beer with my Uncle Dennis at Mulready’s, a quasi Irish pub that is a staple in the Emporia cycling community.

Dennis, who RV’d with 5 other guys from Georgia decided to donate his number to a friend, but he was going to run support stops for the team. We swapped cycling stories and discussed the idiosyncrasies of the  handlebar mustaches seen in the cycling world.

I stayed Northeast of town about 20 minutes in a friend’s converted hunting lodge. Like hundreds of other riders, the night of sleep before the race was less than stellar. I got up at 4:45 so I could watch the 200 milers roll out at 6:00 a.m.. About 1300 participants started the 200 mile race. The seemingly endless train of cyclist of all shapes sizes and ages was jaw dropping. That's one of the initial things I noted last year as people were crossing the finish line. One often has this mental picture of what they think a cyclist looks like. When you see that they look nothing like your stereotypical cyclist, it gives you encouragement that this is something everyone can do.

The weather at the Dirty Kanza is always an X factor. With flooding the previous 2 weeks, no one really knew what they would be getting into, but things dried out beautifully. The course was packed and fast and dry. Having evacuated as much coffee from myself as possible, I got in line towards the back of the pack near a couple on a couple fat bikes. I didn't want to be positioned near anyone too fast.

Six-thrity rolled around and we got the countdown and an ear full of “Roll Out” by Ludacris and a barrage of cowbells from the hundreds of onlookers. Police escort pulls the pack out of downtown Emporia and points you to the gravel. Along the way, tons of people are sitting in lawn chairs along the ditches waving and cheering like they're your best friend from kindergarten. Within 3 miles the notoriously sharp rocks of the Flint Hills start popping tires. I'm nervous. I have a new set of tires but I've been told numerous times I should have Tubeless Rims. I don’t. I was also told I could use a new drive train that would have cost another $300. I didn't have that either. I'm just gonna put my head down and pedal and try to make it the Council Grove to the first support stop. 

Luckily, the weather is great and the wind is minimal. Shockingly minimal. Never before have I ridden in Kansas with so little wind. Things are going smooth. Checking off mile by mile without incident. Getting accustomed to the slow rolling hills, of which I have no experience. I'm riding relatively fast for me and not redlining. On board, I have ample amounts of energy bars and water to get me through that first 50 miles. As I roll into Council Grove, I start seeing familiar faces everywhere including cycling friend, my wife and kids, my mom, stepdad and my aunt along with my college buddy that agreed to perform any bike maintenance along the way. I pull up and feel like in a NASCAR driver at a pit stop. My bike goes up on the rack and starts getting cleaned off and lubricated and people start handing me food and water. I have to admit my favorite part of the stop, besides all the smiling faces, was a peanut butter, jelly and pickle sandwich that I wolfed down. After about 15 minutes in Council Grove, legs feeling good, bike running well, I'm ready to tackle the last half of the race. 

Some ominous signs pop up right away. Going South out of Council Grove you ascend a steap hill right out of the gate and I realize that my legs feel more tired than I thought. Also, when did it get so God dang hot out here?! I start slugging more water than I probably should be for the amount of race that's left in front of me.

About 10 miles into the Western push, a small group I'm riding with inches over to the side as the ambulance pulls by and proceeds down the racecourse. That's never encouraging. A few miles down the road, a middle-aged guy wearing a sling on his left arm is reluctantly welcoming his wife to chat with the EMT's. His day would appear to be over.

 As we plug along approximately 65 miles into this race, I'm really noticing that I'm running out of water and it is getting hotter. The original forecast was predicting afternoon possibilities of thunderstorms.There was nothing that I saw was predicting 90 degree temperatures that day. I was grossly short on the water. I start looking for stock tank faucets but I'm not seeing anything. As we again head back to the East I see a lady mowing her lawn. I pull up to her and ask if I can refill my waters. She says of course! She was going to put up a sign but got side tracked by all the yard work. I'm incredibly grateful and tell her as much as I begin my push toward Emporia. 

I don't know whether it was the heat, tired legs or just a geography, but pushing up those hills on the second half of the race got infinitely harder. It was not uncommon to run out of gears and still not be pedaling fast enough to keep your bike upright. So I walked. Quite a bit. With the temperatures continuing to rise, something amazing happened. People just started showing up on the side of the roads with water bottles. People saying they had other stuff to do that day but they knew the race was going on and they knew that it was hotter than predicted. 

This was something I noticed with my bikepacking trip: people will go out of their way and invest time and money for total strangers; just to bring them some comfort. It's amazing and it gives you something to truly be grateful for. If it wasn't for the kindness of these strangers I certainly never would have been able to finish the race. 

As I pulled into Americus for the final leg of the race, I was swarmed by volunteers to help me cap off my bottles and provide kind words of encouragement. I had about 10 or 15 miles to go and it was going to be relatively flat. At this point I had already exceeded any distance of riding than I've ever done in a day. I was excited to see my computer roll over the triple digit mark at just a shade over 8 hours with about 4 miles to the Finish line. The race organizers, of course, have one more trick up their sleeve as they make you pedal up a gargantuan hill just East of the Emporia State campus. Again, onlookers are there coaxing you up to speed up and to squeeze out every last bit of energy to get you to the summit.

As I pedaled the last few blocks down Commercial Avenue, I see my family cheering like crazy and shaking cowbells. I ramble across the finish line and I'm greeted by a very hip, very enthusiastic girl that makes it seem like I finished in 1st place. They hand me my post race swag and everyone is so so nice. You really feel like a rock star even though you finished in 294th place. My family surrounds me and my friend hands me a much needed beer. I had done it. I tackled my first 100 mile ride across some of the most scenic prairie in the world. My butt was sore, I was filthy and I was sunburnt. But I was elated. Strangers toting swag similar to mine passed out congratulations or gave little head nods of acknowledgement. 

Come back tomorrow to see where it all started and the key take away points from the entire ordeal.