Biking Across America (part 4)

We are riding this three seater bike across America and living in our vans along the way. Our 3,000 mile route started in Oceanside, California and ends at the Atlantic Ocean in Annapolis, Maryland. We only have a little over a month to complete the journey, so our goal has been to average 100 miles a day on the Trandom for 30 days straight. We're currently 12 days in to pedaling east and so far we've made it 1,000 of the 3,000 miles. We've already ridden through California, Arizona, Utah and Colorado where the guys climbed to the highest point of the whole trip in matching leotards.

We did it.

Our butts are sore, the cars are really scary. We almost got hit by a boat. And we've had a few more flat tires than expected. But we are still loving this challenge with our best friends. We're breaking the speed limit in this episode. The adventure continues and it's of course filled with all kinds of ups and downs.

Today's just not really our day. This thing's falling off.

Hey, turn the vans around. We got another flight.

Good morning. It is day 13 of biking across America. Last night we slept at almost 9,000ft in the mountains of Colorado. And this morning we woke up to find this. Our bike seats are completely frozen. I think we're going to have a hard time talking, Karen, to getting on the bike this morning.

I don't want to ride in the cold. I'm scared. I don't even know what to do right now.

I just want to remind you that yesterday afternoon I was riding 2,000ft higher than we are now in my underwear.

And whose decision was that? I do a lot of hard things. The cold is the one thing I just.

It's not for me if I leave.

She's usually not like this in the morning. I've actually never seen this much energy.

It's a lack of oxygen.

At 8,000ft, it literally takes her 15 minutes to make a bowl of yogurt. It is quite impressive, actually.

Somehow we are riding 50 miles a day each and I don't think we've lost any weight. We might be gaining weight, actually.

All right, here is the ultimate test.

Sheep.

I'm jealous.

When Rick was getting the bike ready for this trip, he installed a coffee cup holder just for me. Cuz back in our ragbride days, let's just say I did some complaining. We'll see if I regret this in about five minutes or if I'm still going to be cold. Bye. Bye. So beautiful. I feel like they're even more Yellow today. So far, I'm happy with the layers.

All right, I'm heading out to meet the girls in Alamosa. It should be a pretty easy day for everybody. If you look at the elevation profile, it is just 50 miles downhill. So hopefully the girls are having a nice, easy, and enjoyable day and they're not freezing to death. Kara's dancing and eating. It looks like she's doing okay.

Still cold.

Okay, this is gonna be a first, but I think Kara's gonna want a hot tea when she gets here, so I'm gonna try to have it ready for her. Although it looks like she's making good time and she's probably gonna be here any second. I haven't even thought about lunch. I'm so far behind today. And then this is some kind of sweet potato bowl. And the instructions on the back literally say, boil sealed pouch in water for five minutes, which I think I can handle.

How does hot tea sound?

I. I took a risk.

Hot, actually.

Also hot. Tip. Do not wear long johns underneath your chamois.

My butt is.

I don't even want it here. All right, and now for the big reveal. It looks like I made us cat food.

Yum. What are you doing back there?

Stretching.

Let me know what you think.

Ooh, it looks a little weird.

It needs a lot of salt, but the flavor's great.

She's about to get 20 things out of the fridge and put it all on top. I guarantee it.

You know where to go? That way and left. Oh, man, that's bad. These are not blue corn tortillas, but they're currently blue and fuzzy.

Turns out I should have brought a rain jacket instead of a sweatshir. I don't even know where that's coming from.

Oh, yay.

Just got some groceries, got a little work done, and now we are heading to La Vida Colorado. Live in La Vida Loca. I don't think it's the same. It's about an hour drive, and the dad should meet us there shortly. Stupid drawer. All that work. It's still broken.

Well, that brings back good memories. Kara and I climbed the highest sand dunes in that national park a couple years ago and then bought a cheap sleeping bag and just slept out in the middle of the dunes. And then we were convinced that we were getting stalked by a mountain lion on the way out.

Okay, so tonight, there's really no good place for us to camp. Unfortunately, however, we have a plan. There is a brewery pizza place in the middle of La Vida. The plan is to walk in, show them how cute and sweet and innocent we are. Become best friends and then ask if we could sleep in their apartment.

Could almost reach out. Grab onto that one.

I was gonna say, man, it goes any slow, we're grabbing on.

Go Dads. They seemed in good spirits. I got a fist bump from all three. That doesn't happen every time.

We just completed the second to last pass of the entire trip. And we won't tell the girls this, but it honestly felt like we were riding on flat ground. We had such a tailwind. Now we just have 14 miles of freezing cold downhill until we get to pizza and beer. We're at 9,400 dol feet. Dang. I think we might steal the climb crusher title from the girls.

Oh my gosh. We just turned off the main road heading towards La Vida and it is one of the most magnificent views I have ever seen. Stunning.

One of our latest nights, but also our second biggest day of the entire trip. Besides the fact that we're all completely frozen, I'd say we're doing pretty good.

There they are.

Oh, a kitty. Welcome.

Well, last night we got away with sleeping in a little gravel lot on the outskirts of town. When we pulled in, we asked the lady at the pizza restaurant last night if there was anywhere to sleep and she told us to call the sheriff. It'd probably be fine if we just slept anywhere in town. Beck tried to call the sheriff. She left him a voicemail and told him that we'd be sleeping here. And we just made the assumption that it would be okay. And no one's come to kick us out yet. Lovetta is a super cool little town. It's really feels like a hidden gem. This is one of the rewards to riding your bike across America. You end up in little towns like this that you would have never visited otherwise. Someone put a poop bag by our tire. I now feel a little less welcome in this town. I feel like that's the equivalent to putting a bag of poop on somebody's front door. At least it's not on fire. Curious. Priest Barbers. One of those flaming bags again.

Don't put it out with your boots, Tad. Day 14 how excited are we?

Enthusiasm is low this morning.

Today is supposed to be our biggest climb. We're doing 3, 000 vertical feet. It's gonna be very windy. I'm a little nervous.

So while we're in the coffee shop this morning, I actually booked some flights for tomorrow. I'll explain later, but first we have to go meet the girls for lunch. What? What is Happening here?

Well, we climbed up like 1500ft, and I was sweating, and then we stopped and the wind was blowing, and now I'm freezing again.

I just had a nice warm morning at the coffee shop. Whoa, your lips are so cold.

Tell me about it.

Breaks over. We got 1300ft of climbing to go. Hopefully the wind dies down. Hi, Katara.

We took a page out of the Downhill Dad's book. We stripped down, and we're at the pass. There's a pass.

What happened to your clothes? The last pass of the trip.

Welcome back. Get in the warm van. Get in the warm van.

What are you doing down there?

I felt warmer in the fetal position.

I guess I could have turned the heat on for you. I have been working on a warm lunch, though.

Really? I love you. I feel so accomplished.

Cold wind gave you some energy.

It was just this balance of one minute, I'm sweating my butt off. I'm like, why am I wearing all these clothes? I'm gonna hyperventilate. I can't breathe. I'm so hot. And then the next minute, this wind would just be blowing us like this. All my sweat would start to freeze, and I'd be like, I'm cold. Why aren't I wearing my wool pants? And then it would just go back and forth the whole way up. And in between those moments, I was thinking about how my legs are never gonna work again, how my butt's never gonna be the same. I can't feel my face.

We ready to do this? Let's do it. We just have to get going. 40 miles an hour, and then it'll be perfectly still. The Hawaiian shirts will keep us safe.

If we die, at least we'll look good.

If I'm being honest, after our experience last night in the high winds, I'm slightly terrified because we have over 5,000ft of descent today. Shouldn't be a hard day on the legs, but maybe a slightly terrifying one for the mind.

I can't say that I'm too jealous of the dad's downhill.

It literally feels like the bike is getting blown off the road. It's one thing to have these high winds while you're climbing, going slow, and it's a much scarier thing to have them when you're bobbing 40 miles an hour downhill.

I just checking my shorts. That was terrifying. We were going about 35 down a steep hill, but had a huge steep climb afterwards. I was just trying to keep the speed up a little bit and a side gust just like. It just felt like we just Shifted three feet in an instant.

I got all wobbly. It felt like the steering wheel did this. Yeah. Rig's really the one doing all the hard work today. He has to keep the bike on the road in this wind. Dusty and I just have to hold on to the handlebars and hope we don't die.

We are currently en route to a place called Trinidad Lake. Should be beautiful in the vans. It's going to take us just over an hour and the dads are estimating that it's going to three hours max. They were banking on the tailwind to keep their speed up, so we'll see.

I'm sure it's impossible to appreciate the camera, but just look at this wind hitting the trees. I also just realized I forgot to buckle my helmet.

Gorgeous. Drive.

This is actually crazy. We're on flat ground right now. We're not even going downhill. It's so scary. It's like one minute and it's eerily calm and next minute you're being hit by a 40 mile an hour gust.

Evie's already playing. Oh, what I would do to have her energy. We haven't stayed in many proper campgrounds this trip just because, you know. But this campground has.

That should do.

Always feels so great be bringing a camera in the bathroom. Good thing I have my shower shoes.

That's an inside joke. I brought my water shoes, so that'll be great.

You didn't know you traveled with water shoes.

Gosh, that was freezing. Oh, this is a terrible divine.

Whoa.

Baby.

7 and 12 minutes goes by way too fast. And it's clearly not enough time to get the mascara off of my eyes.

Wow. That was good. It has been 14 full days since we've had a proper shower. Pretty crazy.

Good morning. We slept at the airport last night. We are actually abandoning the team today, so we are flying to San Francisco to go to this YouTube retreat thing. There are some high ups from YouTube there and a bunch of creators that feel kind of like way out of our league. So this felt like way too good of an opportunity to pass up. This was the plan all along. The team okayed it. But now that we're in the middle of the trip, it just feels so right. It doesn't feel right.

I'm sorry, team.

Hey. Welcome back.

We missed you.

We missed you too.

How was your weekend? What did we miss?

Well.

10 miles of biking, first car to pass us.

This is the busiest and biggest town we've hit since you've left.

Left?

We saw all six people leave town earlier. Now there's, like, literally nobody here.

Colorado, Colorado, Colorado, Colorado, Colorado, Colorado, Kansas.

So far, I cannot tell the difference. Kansas is off to a rocky start.

Wait, how do I know if it's on? It's on. Okay, go. Well, I say hi, Karen. Me, daddy, and Evie are on the bike. And. And this is what you're missing. Nothing. It's just flat, plain, windy and boring roads. And there's a horrible side wind. So, yeah, you're missing nothing.

This is the man. Look at all these flies. It's beautiful here.

I'm sure.

I'm sure San Fran's nice, but, you know, you don't get this there. I'm gonna eat one on accident, I think.

Not much.

What about you?

All right, we got Nate on the tee here. What do you think? He's gonna hit a good. I think he's gonna get a hold.

Dude. Oh, wow. Oh, my gosh.

Are we in heaven?

Yeah, not much.

Back to real life. Slept in the Walmart parking lot. And it is absolutely freezing this morning.

Wish us luck, because we don't know where we're going. I got the maps. Don't worry, team. I am so good at navigation.

Good luck, girls. Strong start.

It's like you never left.

Oh, I feel so fresh, my butt doesn't even hurt. Bye. As luxurious as this weekend was, it feels good to be back, even though I'm freezing. It smells like poop. And we're on a.

Long, straight highway.

All right, Back to the normal routine. Back to meeting the girls for lunch. Even though Dusty and Rick have only talked about how boring the ride through Kansas has been up to this point, I am so excited to get back on the bike.

I feel like I can't open my mouth. I can taste it. Like, I feel like I'm eating poop just by breathing.

All right. The conditions are ideal.

For me to attempt to drive the Trandom for the first time. But we're on a flat road. It's straight. We have a shoulder. Kansas people are nice, so I'm gonna.

Give it a shot.

Do you have any tips, Beck? When the big trucks come by, hold.

No, you can be great if I can do it. Anyone? One, two, three.

So push, push, push, push. Now get up on your seat. Nice.

What is wrong with me?

I've now attempted to start the bike 10 times. I'm pretty sure my big toenail is gone, disconnected from my body. It's like as soon as we start pedaling, I lose control and I start going like this with the steering wheel. And I don't Know how to stop it. We're gonna give another go, and I'm gonna try to keep my eyes ahead of me and not straight down. That could be my problem. Here we go.

You got that?

You're driving. Karen's driving the bike through a construction zone.

That's the most dangerous thing that's happened the whole trip. Wow. I can't believe it. I haven't even driven the bike.

Believe it or not, on my last try, it actually worked. We are now 33 miles into the day. We've just come through our first town of Cimarron. We just encountered our first welcome party.

Is my new favorite city.

And they just really gave me the energy I needed. I'm very nervous to start again, but we have a nice big road. We're gonna wait until there's no cars. We got this.

What is happening right now?

Keep going, keep going.

I am so terrified for everyone on the bike right now.

Thank you, Frankie. I'm so proud of you. You did so good. Thank you for sticking with me. We almost died. No, we didn't. I have a whole new respect for the people in the back.

I don't think the people in the back realize that's me.

All their trust in that person. This person is the only one that matters.

Now that you sat here, do you realize, like, how. How dangerous it is just be back there relaxing?

Instagram.

It's all good.

I wouldn't even taking selfies, honestly. I have never been on such a high in my life. Like, the pressure of driving two other people on a main highway where cars are driving by at 65 miles per hour.

Absolutely love seeing you unlock a new level of your comfort zone and the high that comes from that. I'm actually so jealous.

I couldn't wait for you to pass by and see me. All right, I have a warning for you. There was one thing that the local girls told us to watch out for. There are huge 18 wheelers with cattle in the back that will spray pee and poop in your face.

Of all the other things that we've been dealing with, pee in the mouth just added to the list.

Sarah literally was like, if I get pee in my mouth, I'm done. Like, I will see you at the end. I will be done. Like, it's over.

Wow.

Gourmet, baby.

Oh, my gosh. It's amazing, if I do say so myself. I love you. Love you. All right, the boys have about 50 miles to the town that we're aiming for tonight, which means I have about 50 miles of driving Just split up with diesel and cleaned our windshield. So enjoy this clean time lapse for the next five seconds because it's gonna be filthy again in no time. The bugs here are no joke.

It feels so good to be back on the bike. We're just cruising at 20 miles an hour.

I have come off of my high from being the captain of the trandom for the day. I've just hit a major wall. Got some cold brew. Not gonna lie, we did not sleep very much this weekend. It was very social.

And then there was like a three hour time change when we came over here. So I am sleepy after my 50 mile drive. It is actually so amazing how much just open flat farmland there is in Kansas.

Riding through Dodge City is crazy. I mean, you know, this stuff happens if you really think about where meat comes from in this country. But on one side of us we have a giant. I think they call it a feedlot, where there are literally hundreds of thousands of cows. And then right across the street is the processing plant with hundreds of refrigerated trailers lined up so you can guess what happens there. If riding through any city would make you a vegetarian, it would be this one.

Turn right, then your destination will be on the left. I think we are sleeping in a parking lot tonight.

I think we just passed someone's lifelong art project. Still not exactly sure what it was. A lot of metal sculptures. Not sure that it was a positive message they were trying to send. There it is. That is the halfway point on a sign. Tomorrow we hit halfway. Someone trying to send us a message. What is that about?

Home sweet home.

Welcome back.

Easiest day ever.

Yeah.

Kansas.

This is not the Kansas Dusty and I experienced the last two days.

It's 36 degrees outside. That's why I'm dressed up like I'm ready to go play in the snow.

First try. Good luck.

So last night we camped in the city park of Greensburg. And in addition to a very serious game of super Smash brothers, which we learned that we can play on a projector on the side of the van. Game changer for the bike trip. I beat you, seven year old. We were also able to squeeze in a quick game of frisbee golf that abruptly ended when two of our frisbees got stuck in this tree. Oh, that's gone forever.

Everything just gets stuck in that tree.

Got one.

Got him.

All right, girls are 15 miles into the day. So far everything's going smoothly. How am I doing? Excellent. Phyllis, lead off. Don't worry, I'll just. Just take us all the way to Ann.

In 32 miles, the girls are going to hit the halfway point of the entire trip in Pratt, Kansas. So I'm in a little bit more of a rush than usual this morning. I'm going to try to head to Walmart, put together a little bit of a surprise, and meet the girls at the halfway point.

Crazy car. Follow the wheel, Follow the wheel.

Follow the wheel. And we have to go through the stream. Oh, my God. You see it? I'm not gonna run. I'm not gonna run. Don't break. Oh, my God.

We did it. We did it. We did it. We did it.

Thank you.

Good job. Thank you for catching me. We did it.

Good morning. It is day 20 of biking across America. Last night we slept at the baseball fields in Kuwitz, Kansas. You didn't miss much yesterday. Well, today looked like this. That's Kansas in a nutshell right there. Where are you going?

Potty.

And by far the most exciting thing that happened yesterday after crossing the halfway point was we had pizza for dinner last night.

Can you feel us, Lita?

Oh, Sarah's going in front.

Three.

Two.

One.

Okay. Well, Sarah's driving this morning, which makes me the only person in the entire group that hasn't driven the bike. I think I'm okay with that.

I was planning on just chilling in the back today.

I know that's not true.

We have Sarah as casting up front. She started driving first try. I would just like to remind everyone of the 47 attempts that I had.

She's crushing it every time we pull onto the highway on a bike. Feels really weird.

Like no extra taxes and fees even. And it was only a hundred dollars in taxes and fees, which is extremely low for British Airways and for UK Pack.

Colorado.

Nice work there. That was you got thrown to the wall. Seriously. Nailed it. We've come to an old favorite. Prop's about to get some pizza at Casey's. Yes.

Where you been, y'? All?

Crushed it.

Tastes like rag fry. Plus, for any of our non American viewers, this is the smallest sized fountain drink that you can get at Casey's. It's a problem, but it's great if you're riding a bike across America because we are thirsty and hungry.

If you're wondering why Americans are bigger than most other cultures, follow me. This is what's being advertised for breakfast.

Bye. Bye. Have fun on your bike ride.

Nice work.

Oh, Good work, guys.

65 miles in the books. We did almost die twice today.

I'll never take a nice shoulder on the road for granted again. For the Rest of my life.

Made it to Yates.

Welcome to the local Mexican restaurant on Main Street. Straight. It's super cute here. And delicious.

Fun.

Gigantic marks. This is a medium.

This is a medium. They're two bigger sizes.

I don't know if I can get it out. This might be the fullest that it's ever been.

What do you think? Is Kara gonna get pee all over?

Yeah, it's close.

Be gentle.

I don't know what to do.

Girls, help her.

It's gonna swing.

Don't let it swing. Don't let it swing.

Stop.

I was helping. Shoot.

Open the door. Open the door. It smells. Nate. Open it. We did it. It's outside. Now it's your turn. I did the hard part. Stinks. Is that just the smell? The forest or the pee? Pee. It's definitely pee. Thank you.

Don't spill it.

Good morning. I could get used to these free campgrounds in these small Midwest towns. This one seems a little too good to be true. There's free electricity, free water, which I'm filling up with this morning. It's right beside a lake. I thought camping was going to get harder as we moved east, but this is great, baby.

Wow. So quick. It's the most energy I've ever seen you have in the morning.

Goodbye, Yates. This turned into one of my favorite little small towns. We went to a bakery this morning and they had the yummiest coffee and pastries. And everyone is so friendly. Now I get to go down.

Wow.

Check out the view. Thunder clearing. Oui.

This feels so weird. I am watching back the first video of this series. Normally there's about a three week delay between us filming a video and usually posting a video. And at that point we're usually doing something completely different. So it feels so weird to be watching an almost finished version of the trip that I'm still on. And I've already forgotten so many things that happen. I am so, so happy to have these look back on.

Welcome to Eola, Kansas, another cute little town.

I just spilled muffin icing all over my computer.

All right, the girls agenda today is pretty crazy. We're riding a three seater bike east and we have one turn. Big, big plan. Today is about to be the lady climb Crusher's second longest day. We're just past halfway on the map, but we're way past halfway in our time frame that we have to finish this journey. So we're stepping on it. Pedal east, baby.

All right, just finished putting the final touches on the first video. And in a way, so much has changed. But also our daily routine is exactly the same. I can't decide if this is going to be the most fun or the most boring series of videos that we've ever made. Oh, not as fast.

I think the second.

I love seeing those big wet vans. The fan club. That's where we're going.

Do you know what's happening in 10 miles?

We're leaving Kansas. I'm jealous you get that satisfaction on the bike. Kansas has been a roller coaster for me. So many of the people are so nice. But we got flicked off again today. Just want to remind everyone the way that you react to a biker on the road as a person in a car, I think says a lot about your personality.

Wow, this is getting personal fast. Frankie, what's been the best part of your day?

Hook came off.

What's been your favorite part of Kansas? Frankie? Frankie. Eating ice cream. Don't everybody start to get teary eyed and nostalgic. But this is our last 10 miles in Kansas.

Say it ain't so. I feel like we just got here seven months ago.

One, two days.

Up, up.

Bye, boys. Oh, bad idea.

We're one days in and we still don't have that kind of skill.

See you, Missouri.

Off to a strong start. Just waiting on the world's longest train.

Kansas is just throwing out roadblocks.

Oh, gosh. I really shouldn't complain because Nate is darn near perfect in so many ways, but the man is a mess. He does not.

Think when he's putting things away. Or should I say when he's not putting things away.

Any final thoughts on Kansas as we say goodbye?

It's taking years off my life. No, Kansas is wonderful. The people are wonderful.

It's very flat. I would say the nicest people that we've encountered thus far. No matter what you're doing, any long adventure, this part of the trip is always just a little bit of like a downswing.

Before we officially hit the road, Sarah and I are gonna stop at the mechanic because we both need an oil change, like, real bad. Our dashboard currently says service overdue by 12,800 miles, which I think is too many.

Kansas. Kansas. Kansas.

Kansas.

Kansas. Kansas.

Kansas.

We have arrived. 10 minute oil change. I feel like 10 minutes is pretty bold. Thank you. He's kind of doing like the nice smile where he thinks I'm really dumb and can't drive. But trying to be nice is 4:57. Timer started it. Cheers.

Oh, my gosh. That's the closest one yet. They almost died going out to the middle of the road trying to avoid the dogs. Oh. Nice job, Rick.

Ever since we crossed the border we just had this beautiful tailwind pushing us along. It's like Kansas wanted to keep us there as long as possible and Missouri's trying to get us out of here.

I figure while I wait, I'll do a little cleaning. I think I need some more cleaner.

Ew.

Is everything okay?

I just tried to get this cap.

To go back on.

Okay.

They make a tool to take it off but they don't make anything to try to help.

I just heard him say. I thought it was a gas motor. It's not.

Now.

I just heard him tell Sarah you're all good to go. This one's gonna take a bit longer. Now there are two guys under the hood. This is not good.

There's this.

Thank you.

Sorry about that again.

Don't be sorry. All good. Thank you.

Have a great day.

It is sick. 6:05pM believe I rolled up at 4:57.

That did not go as planned. He admitted to me that he thought this was a gasoline vehicle. I mean he never asked. He was conveniently out of all of the oils except for the 91. I don't know how. I just paid 135. I didn't even ask. I just wanted to get out of there because it's gonna get dark and I still have an hour drive. But the van is very clean.

The sun's just set and we still have 21 miles to go before we get to our in town. And also, worst case scenario, I forgot to charge my flashers. But we do have one tiny light on the back.

Are you serious? I just got a notification on here that says reduce oil level. What the heck?

Well, we didn't quite make it 130 miles which would have been our biggest day of the whole trip. But we did make it 120. The only problem is at the 120 mile mark, there was nowhere to sleep. This pilot gas station was the only thing that was on route. The only problem is we're not exactly sure if we're allowed to sleep here.

We got a couple vans and we're wondering if we.

Leave.

Yeah.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Pretty much the entire time she's like, stop talking. I just. I'm saying yes. Next time if we're not so sure, we'll have Frankie come in like 30 seconds into me asking. We'll have her have wear no shoes and ask me, daddy, is this where we live now? Depends on what this nice young lady says.

Frankie. All right, so pilot is home sweet home for the night, girls.

Yay, gas station.

It's a little dangerous at this point in the trip.

Just making ourselves at home. And pilot.

And one of the many things we pondered on the three seater bike today. If there is an easterly wind, for example, is that a wind blowing towards the east or from the east?

It doesn't change what you call it.

So it's coming from the northeast.

All right. It's a Nora. That's pretty cute.

All right, Internet.

Day 22. We're doing a little maintenance on the bike before the day starts. And by we, I mean Rick.

It's never shot hit that before. Yeah.

All right, girls have hit the road. The bike is probably in the best shape it's been in since day one when we put the bike in the Pacific Ocean, which, looking back, probably wasn't the best call. I don't know if the saltwater is good for the chains, but we're good. We're going. And we're in Missouri. Oh, I can taste it. Oh, so bad. The biggest difference between Kansas and Missouri. My experience so far is that the road kill is everywhere and it's in my lungs.

Well, in case it's not obvious, our back tire is flat. Not really sure why, but thankfully Rick's here to save the day. He just happened to be parked at the gas station. That was just. Just a few minute walk up the road. We're just gonna take this as an opportunity to reset, go to the bathroom, have a snack. We were going.

All right. Rick has our back tire in good shape, and now we've moved on to the chain. The chain's been a little wonky, but YouTube saved the day. I think I may have jinxed us this morning. I was like, the bike is probably.

In the best shape it's been in since day one.

And here we are with a flat tire and a broken chain. Thanks, Rick.

You're welcome with us. Enjoy.

See you later. We're back.

Oh, my gosh. The hill.

And jamming.

Is hard.

We made it. Oh.

Have fun.

You know, guacamole in a bag isn't so bad. I'm just getting lazier and lazier on this trip.

All right, strong start. Our chain fell off, and that's the gas station we left from.

Why in the world? This honestly might be the worst riding of the trip so far. We're just on the side of a highway with a 70 mile an hour speed limit. Currently, there's no shoulder, but even when there is, it's Just filled with garbage and dead animals. It's worse when you're going up a hill because the speed difference is greater, which means if we hit from behind, I splat. I just cannot believe this is the way the route's taking us from putting on the safety act.

Next.

Okay, don't worry. We should be good now.

Today's just not really our day.

They look so sad, Poor things.

It's already flat again. It wasn't flat when we stopped here.

Nate, look at your hand that you sticking in that bag?

For once, I was not filming, and I was actually helping. I almost got all the way across the US without learning anything about a bike. We have 13 miles and 0 minutes until the sun sets.

I love you.

Wish us luck. Love you too.

Good luck, Nate. Make eye contact with the driver.

Look at the cars like this.

Buckle your helmet at.

Let's do it. Now we got an audience. Where's the fourth man at?

Bad news? No, we might be all right. There's nothing we can do now but try to bend it straight.

Good thing we were going to the bike shop tomorrow anyway. Let's try.

Off they go. See you next year.

Bye, guys. Good night. Okay, we just met the absolute cutest people in the parking lot. Definitely the highlight of Missouri so far.

What the heck? This chain's falling off. Hasn't given us problems the whole trip. We're like, two miles from where we started. Chain sounds terrible.

Are you even switching gears right now, or is it just doing that?

Moments like these. I'm questioning why we're doing this.

We are 30 miles away from a bike shop. We're already planning on going there in the morning, but now it's an absolute necessity if this bike's gonna make it to the east coast.

I'm just in one of those moods where I'm worried. I'm worried, and I don't want them riding on this road.

The that back tires flat again.

Hey, turn the vans around. We got another flat. Okay.

I guess we'll just push back up the off ramp. It's crazy. We've gone probably 10 days without getting a flat tire. We got, like, four flat tires in one day. Bought a bunch of extra tubes, Never got another flat. And today we've gotten this. Three or four? Three.

Four.

This is four.

Shifting's been messed up ever since this morning. We've had multiple chains fall off, and I think we're coming. Yeah.

I don't know how we're gonna keep that.

Yeah, it's over. We're just riding through this so that we don't have to ride on the interstate. Take me back to Kansas. That makes so much sense.

It's like a shard of metal.

Like the tiniest.

Like, I got pliers too. Maybe we'll grab it with that pinhead.

Yeah, I'll just hold it right here. Who knows how many of those flats this one little piece of metal cost.

That particular tire is responsible for like eight flats by itself.

I'm not touching that guy. Ew. Do you have any gloves? Yes, I have my bike gloves. For some reason, there's a major fly problem both in Kansas and Missouri, apparently. And we've been paying Evie and Frankie in Peanut M M's to kill as many as they can for every fly she kills and disposes of and gets out of my bed. Which she didn't get this one, so that one doesn't count. Frankie, she gets two M's.

No.

It's an all or nothing situation. I see three on the back of the ceiling.

Get him. Oh, there's one right above Kara's head.

Yep, got it.

And it's in her hair.

It's here. No, it's not. No, it's not.

Ah, he's alive. No.

Okay, I think we're gonna call it for today.

Today has been weird.

On a positive note, we're doing dumplings for dinner. I always try to find a private way to park so we can have a little space. So we formed a square with this 18 wheeler. Tonight, we assume this is just sitting here and isn't going anywhere. It's gonna be weird if this is gone in the morning. You'll never believe what just happened.

We're not out of propane. We're not.

We ran out of propane.

No, we didn't.

Mid cooking these delicious things.

I don't believe you. This has literally never happened since owning.

The van for over two years. We filled up with propane once.

Some of the flies are still alive, just moving their little legs in the pile. She's a monster.

Good morning. I believe it is day.

And 25. We're switching things up today. The guys didn't finish their mileage yesterday because the bike kept breaking. And there's a bike shop in Jefferson City that opens at 8:30 and we're going to try to be there by the time it opens. Our real motivation behind this is that 70 miles from where we are now is a little town called Herman. And there they have a big Oktoberfest celebration on the weekends. Today just happens to be Saturday. Our goal is to get To Herman tonight to be able to compete in the Stein holding competition. Good morning.

I see one fourth of our square disappeared last night.

Did you hear it?

Yeah.

I could smell the cigarette he was smoking inside our van.

The crazy thing is Kiera and I are both such hard sleepers and we turned these fans on in the van. I didn't even hear a literal semi truck that was three feet away from the front of our van move last night. Spirits are high this morning. Or at least we're finding some stuff to laugh about. Okay, I love you. I'm getting on the bike.

I don't really have a choice about that. Mike, let me borrow a jacket because it's chilly in the morning. Kind of nice to be the first ones on the bike. This is a normal Saturday. Get up, get on the interstate on a bike. We did pass a cop yesterday at halfway. Thought we were going to get arrested because it does feel illegal to ride on this road.

It felt so weird having a lazy morning, not waking up, putting on a shammy, getting on a cold hard bike seat. I think I like the afternoon shift.

Oh.

Nice work. I kind of feel like we got a free 20 miles. I just kind of slept on the back of the bike and an hour later we were here.

Yeah, we'll just do it here.

Steve was a legend. He turned out the bike didn't charge us anything. We're back on the road. It didn't seem like he actually did much, but the bike sounds a lot better than it did before.

Well, this feels weird. I just got.

Cool truck dude. I just got to our meeting point where the dad should be here. I don't know when they'll be here. Actually I pretty much just woke up and drove straight here. I don't know how far away they are, but what is up with these loud trucks? You'd think I'd be in Tennessee.

We decided we were sick of riding on the side of the highway. So we found the Katy Trail and luckily the Katy Trail, which is a 300 mile bike trail that runs through Missouri. This happened to be running parallel with our route and we are just cruising at 17 miles an hour towards Oktoberfest. It doesn't get better than this.

It's about that time. It's just nothing like clean shaved armpits when you haven't showered in a week, you know. No cars, no cars.

It's really well kept. There's hardly any sticks or rocks.

How many dead armadillos did you pass?

Zero. Once we got on the rail trail.

Woohoo.

Oh, my gosh. The Katy Trail hype is real. Forget everything I said about Missouri yesterday. Missouri is amazing. Look at this. The sun is shining, the sky is blue. There are no cars going 70 miles per hour. And just from my face. And this beautiful trail is taking us all the way to Oktoberfest.

Wow.

Well, Herman looks super cute. I cannot believe it is 1:30pm As a team, we will have still done 70 miles today. And now we just get to chill, watch football, celebrate Oktoberfest. What a different day than yesterday.

We're headed out. The best ride of the whole day. He saw a turtle.

Did the turtle beat you here?

The hardest part about Stein holding is that you want to drink the beer, but you have to hold out in.

Front of you for a few minutes. Three minutes.

Oh, it's a good afternoon.

Hi, Karen. Nate. I just wanted to show you this amazing campground run. It has this amazing playground and these two toilets, and it's, like, so good. Well, what if the toilet has bugs everywhere? But, yeah, that's not important right now, so.

Whoa. That was a good throw. Better than Cara.

I don't know if they have pina coladas in San Francisco, but we're at.

Where are we at?

We're at parrot code.

Tastes like puna cana.

So boring here without you guys. We really wish you guys were here. I mean, we're just sitting around doing nothing.

Just waiting for you to come back.

Really.

We miss you, Karen and Nate.

Are we frolicking?

We're frolicking.

What happened? This morning?

I was just inside using the toilet, and I never saw that. I never saw the guy, but I just. I'm pretty sure sure he opened the door by kicking it. And it was just like, boom. I was kind of startled, sitting in the stall, and then I hear the stall door next to me slam shut. And then, you know, like, if you clear your throat, you can do it, like, in a way that's just like.

He's like.

I'm just, like, in the stall next to him. Like, I think I'm out of here. I don't know what this beast is that just sat down next to me, but feels threatening.

White could possibly go wrong.

Do you know how to break.