UTICA, KAN. - How many times have I heard people complain about driving across Kansas because it's soooooo boring?

Chalk up another reason why bicycle touring is the best way to see the country. Kansas, by bike, is anything but boring. For one thing, you get to stop at all the small-town cafes.

I have a notion that many of these towns where we've stopped lately -- Bison, McCracken, Ransom, Utica -- are all frontier towns. Each is surrounded by hundreds of square miles of wheat farms and pasture. The highway we're on runs past the southern edge of town. The grain elevators are one or two blocks north on Main Street, sitting on the railroad tracks. Main Street has the post office, cafe, bar, and grocery store. These towns boast the only trees on the landscapes ...

"A lot of people ask me why I went east to west because the winds are predominantly west to east, and part of the reason was I that I like the idea of heading home. It's just kind of a goal that you aspire to get to, so that means a lot to me from a psychological standpoint, especially at times when you're feeling a little low."

--Cross-county bicycle traveler Mike Dillon, quoted at MercuryNews.com, June 14, 2010.

You might remember that I wrote a short piece in March about Dillon, the former general counsel for Sun Microsystems ...

Slovenian ultra-cyclist Jure Robic is well past the half-way point of the 2010 Race Across America with the entire solo field strung out for hundreds of miles behind him.

The 45-year-old four-time champion most recently rode through the Fort Scott, Kansas, checkpoint at 2:10 p.m. (ET) on Monday.

His closest rival is Gerhard Gulewicz of Austria, who's trailing by about 60 miles. The other 15 men in the under-50 age stretch as far back as Trinidad, Colorado, more than 500 miles behind. [June 15 update: Gulewicz had cut that gap to 40-some miles by Tuesday afternoon. See RAAM website for update and video.] ....

LA CROSSE, KAN. -- We're sitting here writing at our journals at a picnic table that's about 30 miles south of the geographical center of the US.

We clicked off a lot of miles today, and I am tired and a little sore, but I feel like I could charge across more than 100 miles of Great Plains tomorrow morning.

We left Hutchinson early in the morning and made it to Nickerson early enough to run into a couple, ages 58 and 52, who spent the night in the home of a stranger who was worried about them camping in the park with tornado warnings broadcast. They too were amazed by how many people help the bicycle tourists...

Just about any European bicycle race this month is touted as a tune-up for the 2010 Tour de France. That's always been true for the just-ended Dauphine Libere.

It's also the case for the Tour de Suisse that started Saturday and runs through next Sunday. The Versus cable network will broadcast highlights of the race daily this week.

While Spain's Alberto Contador focused attention on the Dauphine as the training ground for his attempt for a third victory at the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong, above right, is racing in the Tour de Suisse to prepare for his attempt for an eighth Tour de France championship.

Among others, he's going up against Switzerland's homeboy and defending champion Fabian Cancellara (spoiler alert) ...

We stopped at a cafe this morning for a long breakfast and fiddled around so we got a late start. Bruce later admitted he just didn't want to get going, given the accident yesterday on the busy highway.

We strapped his bent wheel rim to his panniers and left, finally reaching County Road 88 and the TransAmerica Route.

Bicycling advocates reacted with outrage this past week to news of Black Hawk, Colorado's ban on bicycling on most streets in town.

Bicycle Colorado, Adventure Cycling Association and the League of American Bicyclists are all asking their thousands of members to contact city officials to rescind the ban.

Perhaps the tiny gambling town west of Denver should have folded instead of playing its hand to prohibit bicycles from most city streets last January. Now the city is the target of some unwanted publicity, at least from bicyclists.

Word about the ban got out last week when some bicyclists complained about $68 tickets ....

EL DORADO, KAN. - We're staying at a motel across the tracks in a town with the unlikely name of El Dorado after Bruce had a close call with an oil tanker truck on a busy highway today.

Bryan, who put us up the night before, suggested we take that road to avoid gravel stretches on the Bikecentennial Route. In retrospect, not good advice.

We had tailwinds in the morning (but we stayed together) and could see for miles all around when we picked up US 54 heading west. Mostly I kept my eyes glued to the pavement, though. The winds from the south caused a dangerous riding situation as I leaned to my left to counteract them. When a passing car or truck blocked the wind, I'd veer slightly left momentarily...

For the past three years, the Rails to Trails Conservancy has been culling through hundreds of bicycling and hiking pathways to create the Rail-Trails Hall of Fame.

It's not an easy task. There are currently 1,631 abandoned railroad rights-of-way that have been converted into bicycling and hiking trails in the U.S. They account for 19,578 miles of paved or gravel pathways.

So far, they've chosen 15 rail-trails. The Rails to Trails Conservancy wants to wrap up the Top 25 on the Honor Roll in time for its 25th anniversary, which is next June. Be looking for almost monthly announcements ...

Tonight finds us at Bryan and Janette's apartment in Chanute. They're a wonderful couple that Bruce met at a restaurant in town where he was eating. Bryan found me a few hours later as I was riding into town.

That's because Bruce and I got separated today.

We cycled the 35 miles from Golden City to Pittsburg in about 3 hours. Riding our first flat roads in four weeks meant  we had a lot of power to cover lots of ground -- fast.

At Girard we turned north and the tailwinds pushed us even faster. I took off with the pure joy of cycling fast. I made a left turn after 7 miles, stopped, fished around in my handlebar pack for a plum and waited for Bruce. He never showed. ....

GOLDEN CITY, MO. - Was this a mirage after too many hours in the saddle? We slipped into a couple of valleys after Pennsboro and were climbing out of the second one when I saw something standing up ahead of me in the road. At first I thought it was Bruce, but he was behind me. Then it looked like a tree had sprouted from the pavement. As I got closer, I saw it was a woman sitting astride a horse watching our slow approach.

She called us over just as we were about to pass. There was a birthday party at a farmhouse. Someone offered us a beer, and we could see no reason to refuse...

The newest and largest bike-sharing program in the U.S. begins operation on Thursday as Nice Ride Minnesota puts 700 bicycles on the streets of Minneapolis at 65 kiosks.

Phase 1 plans call for 1,000 of the distinctive lime-green bikes parked at 75 kiosks around town, including 10 kiosks on the University of Minnesota campus. Long-range plans call for spreading the system to St. Paul as well.

The Nice Ride Minnesota launch follows the Denver B-cycle launch in mid-April; it's now operating with 400 bicycles at 42 stations. Boston will be the next bike-share system to roll out in the U.S. later in 2010, followed by a second bike-share program for the Washington DC-Arlington ....

The Ozarks are starting to level out, and we were on pace for a 90-mile day when we saw the homemade sign on Route 38 between Hartville and Marshfield: "Lazy Louie Bicycle Camp." It was only early afternoon, but we knew we had to stop; we had told the Cookie Lady back in Virginia that we'd check in on him.

Lazy Louie opened the bicycle camp in 1976, the first year that cyclists started passing through on the Bikecentennial route. A eastbound couple who we met in the morning called the camp "kind of rustic." The camp is an overgrown woodlot across the road from his house and barn. There's a shelter, picnic table, and shady grassy areas for tents. You can tell he has put a lot of work into it over the years. ....

Riding a bicycle is banned on many streets in Black Hawk, Colorado, and police are enforcing the law by ticketing violators.

The old mining town west of Denver created the bike-free zones in January.

While many cities in Colorado and the US are working to make streets safer and more accessible to residents who choose bicycles over motor vehicles, Black Hawk simply made bicycling illegal on most streets.

Black Hawk City Manager Bill Copp told TheDenverChannel.com.

"If you go down Main Street there is not much room for a bicyclist, a bus or a car, a truck. We are trying to promote safety. ... It's a choice. We made our choice and now the bicyclist needs to make his or her choice." ...

HOUSTON, MO. - The hills in the Ozarks are bigger, steeper, and harder to climb than I expected. At Carl's Cafe in Eminence, Carl said we'd have to walk our loaded touring bicycles up these hills. No way. We pedaled -- very slowly.
Bruce isn't feeling well this morning, but I don't think that's holding us back. Gravity's doing that. .

This whole area of the Ozarks draws lots of whitewater adventure seekers. Current River is popular with tourists, so is Jack's Ford. Lots of canoe, kayak, and raft businesses in Eminence. Up a steep hill and down the other side is Alley Spring, the picture-postcard site of an 1895 mill (above). The caretaker operated it for us, to show how wheat and corn was ground in the old days...

Another epic Race Across America begins this week as bicycle racers depart from Oceanside, California, for a 3,004-mile sleep-deprived slog across 14 states to Annapolis, Maryland.

The efforts of the two-, four-, and 8-person relay teams that leave on Saturday are remarkable. Even more phenomenal are the aspirations of 5 female solo racers who leave today and the 25 men who leave on Wednesday.

They'll single-handedly battle the mountains, headwinds, and dark nights as they pedal across the US ahead of their support crews. In the past 27 years of the event, only 200 solo riders have finished the race. Most succumb to exhaustion or hallucinations or failure to meet the time cutoffs. Two died in collisions with motor vehicles ....

OWL'S BEND, MO. - If you could pick a time to be sick, it probably wouldn't be the day you're pedaling the rollercoaster hills of the Ozarks.

We left Johnson's Shut-ins in a light drizzle and immediately started climbing. A little while later, a carload of Boy Scouts who we camped with the night before pulled up alongside me, and they said my friend was way down the road. I waited for him, and when he caught up, Bruce said he wasn't feeling well. After that, we took it real slow.

We stopped at Wisdom's Cafe in Centreville for a second breakfast. Afterwards I went to mail some postcards and pick up some grub, and when I returned Bruce was sitting lotus-style with his back against a building, fast asleep. ...

“The most expensive bike I have cost me $3 because I had to buy some pieces for it. Everything else is just garbage that was given to me. I am brazen enough that if I am riding around and see some bikes with grass growing through them, I’ll knock on your door and ask if you want me to drag them off.”

-- Freelance bike builder Mack Carter of Iowa Park, Texas. TimesRecordNews, June 6, 2010: "Building a better bicycle; Iowa Park man turns garbage, spare parts into innovative rides."

Carter told the TimesRecordNews that he started building bike about 7 years ago when he was looking for a bike to buy and determined they were all too expensive. Since then, he's built 50 to 75 bicycles. ....

JOHNSON'S SHUT-INS STATE PARK, MO -- We're tenting in the group camp area near some Boy Scouts tonight. They're pretty comical, and a couple came over for awhile to talk bicycles, like: "Can you ride no-hands?"

I know Missouri is the "Show Me" state, but I don't know why it's called that. I would like to have people around here show us some common courtesy.

The folks in Ste. Genevieve were very helpful. One lady said to us out of the blue, "You look lost." (As a matter of fact, we were.) In Farmington this morning, we talked to a guy while I filled the fuel bottles and were offered unlimited iced tea in a cafe at the square.

But as soon as we entered the Ozarks, things changed. People stare, more like glare. ...

Lance Armstrong held onto third place overall as the Tour of Luxembourg came to an end Sunday, putting the 38-year-old cyclist closer to the condition he'll need for the 2010 Tour de France.

Armstrong shared the podium with overall winner Matteo Carrara of Vacansoleil and second-place finisher Frank Schleck of Saxo Bank.

The leader of Team RadioShack, which won the team classification, told reporters after the race that he felt good about the finishing on the podium, especially considering the illnesses and crash that marred his spring season. He's quoted at Reuters:

"Any time you can win a race, be on a podium, in preparation it's important. I wouldn't ....