The Spirit was Willing, but the Flèche was Weak

We put together a team (Emily, Hunter, John and myself with Rudy in support) to ride a Flèche from Springfield to Grain Valley, just east of Kansas City. The 237 miles had to be ridden in 24 hours. The intermediate checkpoints were Miller, Golden City, Nevada, Holden, and Greenwood.

We left Springfield at noon on Friday into a headwind that wore on us most of the ride as it swung from the west to the north. We were little late getting to Golden City, in part due to a flat the John had about 10 miles out. Emily also dropped out prior to Golden City. Dinner took some more time, but we began to make it up on the road to Nevada until we hit a gravel section just south of town. We had ridden four miles up MO 71 to avoid a gravel section between DD Hwy and E Hwy in Vernon County. We made good speed on the wide, smooth shoulder, and there was not much traffic that late at night. When we got to E Hwy, the map was not correct because E Hwy only went east and we were heading west. The road to the west was paved, so we kept going and hit gravel after a few hundred feet. The gravel was not too bad, but after two miles we came to a road closed sign. Fortunately there was a road to the north and it was paved. We made it into Nevada about an hour behind schedule, so we actually lost ground we had started to make up.

We were also a little slow getting out of Nevada (12:30AM), and we hit more gravel, that we were expecting, before we got to M Hwy that would take us northeast toward Holden. While M Hwy is flat, we were not keeping up a speed to make it to Grain Valley on time. The wind had picked up from the north again, and it was getting colder. Just before 3AM and after 140 miles, we decided to abandon and called Rudy. Fortunately he was only about 1/2 hour away. Everyone was really chilled, so John wrapped up in a space blanket, and Hunter and I took turns in his bivey bag until Rudy arrived.