WASHINGTON, Kan. - If you were to travel straight across Northern Kansas from the Colorado border to the Missouri state line by car, it would take you about seven hours. This week, a group is embarking on that journey by bicycle, a trip that will take them more than seven days.

Since 1975, every year around June 12 a large crew of Kansas cyclists convenes with one goal: to bike from Kansas' Colorado border all the way across the state to the Missouri state line in about a week, stopping off at many of the state's small towns along the way. 

"It is a collection of people from all over the country and the world, we have folks that come together as strangers, and after seven, eight, nine days of being together, living together, riding together, become family," said Bryan Toben, executive director of Biking Across Kansas. "Every year, the week that contains June 12 becomes our annual family reunion on wheels, and we ride from the Colorado border to the Missouri border from Saturday to Saturday."

After biking along Highway 36 for most of the morning, some riders will take up residence for the night at local motels, but by and large schools - like Washington County High - serve as the nightly home bases for the bikers.

"We ride 60, 70 miles a day, we get to a community, we stay in the high schools – nothing like sleeping in a high school with 500-plus of your new closest friends! - and then we get up the next morning and we do it all over again," said Toben.


With hundreds of bikes parked along the school's outer walls for the night, some riders carve out their territory outside to sleep in tents, while most set up shop inside to try to get some sleep on the gym floor.
These home bases feature mechanics from Scheels to keep all the bikes in good working order and, new this year, massage therapists from Wichita on site every night of the trip to keep the bikers in good working order during a physically challenging sojourn.

"Just talking with the people, helping them out, getting them on the bike the next day...the fact that we could see the community helping each other, we would see the people trickling in as they come in off the route saying, ‘Hey, how was your ride today? Did you do OK?’ And just having this big community feel," said Alicia Dale, one of the therapists.

"It’s an eclectic group of athletes, too, and a lot of them don’t consider themselves athletes but they are very much, athletes. They train," said Cindy Moore. "We’ve worked on a lot of people who have injuries that a lot of us would consider debilitating. They have fusions, and hip and knee replacements, and ankle surgeries, and rotator cuff repairs, and yet they’re still going out there and competing – against themselves, at least."

"Anybody who tells you Kansas is flat, come with me on a bike ride across the state. You’ll change your mind," said Gary Webb of Wichita, who's on his 11th ride with B.A.K. "There are places that are nice and level, but it’s not continuously flat everywhere."

For many of the local towns across the state, this event serves as a needed fundraiser: an influx of more than 500 people from across the state and across the country looking to eat, shop and explore places they probably have never been before.

"The host towns are very excited to have us, and they know we’re coming so they’re ready for us," said Jan Hudzicki of Mission, who's on her eighth ride with B.A.K. "I’ve been to places where there were no food trucks, no snacks, no fundraisers, but on this ride, there’s options, so you always know there’s going to be places to eat, places to sleep, showers, it may be cold water, but heck, that’s part of the fun of it all."  

The 51st annual Biking Across Kansas ride is past its midpoint, with the contingent spending Wednesday traveling from Mankato to Washington, about a 63-mile journey. By the end of Thursday, they'll be in Sabetha, 73 miles away, and by Saturday, they'll be in Elwood, the trip's terminus.

Starting last Saturday in St. Francis near the Colorado border clear across on the other end of the state to this weekend on the Missouri state line, a group of more than 500 cyclists will have traveled more than 500 miles together in only about a week, an impressive achievement. But unsurprisingly, both event employees and participants say this experience is much more about the journey than the destination, and about the camaraderie an event like this creates.

"It’s a great sense of community, all of the people are so nice, and so very generous, and if we can help them get to their destination, all the better. If we can help them finish it and say they accomplished getting to Missouri, then that’s what we want to do," said Dale.

"The goal really is to slow life down a little bit. To see the beautiful state of Kansas on two wheels, three wheels, and to get to know the people," Toben said. "You buzz through these places, these communities, on I70, you don’t really get to see the beauty of the state, you don’t get to see the museums in Belleville or the stuff in Sabetha. So we slow life down a little bit."

"You just get on the open road, and you just ride. You get to see nature around you, and get to do the thing that you love every single day," said Emma Spacek of Lenexa, who participated in B.A.K. with her sister Monica for the first time last year and decided to return for another go. "You wake up each day, and you just get to ride your bike with everybody else that loves it as well."

"I like that I can get on my bike and ride for an hour without having to stop for a stop sign, or traffic, you just ride," Hudzicki said. "I just enjoy being on the bike and that freedom, to me, that you can just enjoy life. Life’s short, enjoy it while you can."