Today was fairly low millage, but very exhausting. I made sure to be on the road by 6am because I knew it would be over 90F by midday. By 8:30am I was run off the road and busted my front wheel on a stick. It was busted bad enough that it wouldn’t roll. I walked with the front lifted up for about a quarter mile to find a gravel patch next to the road where I could work. It was clear that the wheel would not be salvageable, but I did get it to a point where I could open the brakes up all the way and roll it.
At this point, I had to make a choice between going back 20 miles to Kansas City where I would definitely be able to come up with a replacement or continuing 5 miles to Leavenworth where there was a single bike shop which had not yet opened for the day. I decided to head to Leavenworth because I was not really able to ride the bike and 20 miles is a long walk.
When I got to the shop in Leavenworth, they were open and had a replacement wheel that would work! They also gave me advice on a closer campground to aim for and the best way to get there. I was able to get back on the road within an hour.
A mile or two after leaving I started to feel the front wheel hitting the brake once per rotation, like it was out of true. I found a driveway to pull over and investigate. Lucky I did because the tire had not been seated correctly and was about to explode out the side! I was able to reseat the tire and continue without circling back to the bike shop.
Several miles later, my left pedal cage came off. It turned out I had sheared through the screw holes. I suspect this was mainly caused during the accident earlier in the day and continuing to pedal finished the job.
I made it into Atchison and got a flat on my rear wheel in the Walmart parking lot. I took a break from the 95F heat at Walmart before rolling my bike to a neighboring park to work on it under some trees. The flat had been caused by an extra pointy piece of gravel, which was very easy to identify. It did leave a visible gash in the tire that could be vulnerable in the future. More likely, that location will pick up a non pointy rock and I will leave it there to prevent picking up a pointy rock.
I finally got to Warnock Lake campground and got permission to pitch my tent in the RV area to be near the water and bathroom since it is so hot. I then accidentally tracked dozens of ants into my tent on my camelback. I removed my camelback from the tent, killed the ants, and removed the ant carcasses from the tent before going to sleep at 5pm.
Around midnight, a thunderstorm with strong winds rolled through. I decided to collapse the tent and put my panniers on it go prevent it from blowing away and wait out the lightning in the bathroom.