New to this

Howdy.

My name's Kanten, and while I'm generally making this blog for friends and family to be able to keep up with my upcoming trip, I figured I'd introduce myself a bit too. I don't really have any experience blogging so I'm sorry if this is a total bore, but hopefully not! 
Me at the World Series in Chicago-29th of October, 2016

I'm 20 years old from Longview, Texas and attended UNT for the past two years, but I'm not planning on returning in the fall. I'm a competitive cyclist that struggles with epilepsy but still harbors dreams of being a pro cyclist one day, so in the fall I will be training and racing with the Williams Racing Academy based out of Wimberly, Texas. 


I decided at the beginning of this summer that I wanted to do a bicycle tour of some significant length, and with my love for Chicago and The Cubs, I felt that The Windy City would be the perfect destination. I'll be riding a Specialized Secteur, which I'll give an in-depth description of in it's own post.


I'm extremely excited to take this journey and hopefully you enjoy tales of my adventures along the way!

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Day 8

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I was delayed leaving St. Louis because I wanted to buy a new tube for my tire, knowing I wouldn't see any bike shops for a while, and none of the shops were open before noon. Once I grabbed a tube, I started riding out and made it into Illinois by way of the Mississippi River, though was unable to find a welcome to Illinois sign unfortunately. Within 5 miles of getting into Illinois I find myself on a bike path that ended up extending for 30 miles! I rode that until I hit historic route 66 in Hamel, and stopped for a burger and some blackberry cobbler. Once I made it off the path, my surrounding were dominated by corn and wheat fields, something I have to look forward to for the next few days. The weather seemed to be holding off so I planned to make it to Springfield, but I ended up having a seizure outside of Litchfield and had to bed down for the night. Waking up this morning, the plan is to make it to Champaign, so I got some breakfast and started pedali...
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Day 3

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Leaving Arkadelphia, I decided to take a detour and go sightseeing in Hot Springs, home of Bill Clinton.  It was about a 20 mile ride from Arkadelphia to Hot Springs so I got there around 11 and checked out the downtown area, and stopped by Parkside Cycles to chat with the guys there. After filling up my bottles from some natural cold springs I was on my way, heading up highway 7 towards Little Rock. This was the most climbing I've done so far on this trip, sitting on the edges of the Ozarks, so I was doing some mild mountain climbing and I was very thankful for the low gearing I had put on my bike. With rain in the forecast I was trying to get to Little Rock before the bad weather, but it wasn't looking good. I made it to Benton around 2 in the afternoon and grabbed a quick snack at a gas station, then jumped right back on the bike. My Godfather was nervous about me camping in Little Rock and so generously got me a hotel for the night, which I really appreciated. About ...
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Day 11

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Leaving Gilman there still was some discomfort in my knee but no real pain unless I pushed really hard. I took it easy, but had a 100+ mile day ahead of me, so I did have to keep a decent pace. The amount of gravel roads I would encounter in Illinois was unexpected, but about half of my day consisted of them, making me happy for the wider tires I fitted. Most of my day was country roads, but once I made it to Joliet, I had a nice Riverside bike path all the way into the Chicago suburbs! I rode that until I hit countryside, and started heading into the city. I rode though Cicero and up Ogden avenue all the way to Damen, which took me through Wicker Park and all the way to Wrigleyville! I had done it, I had finally made it to my destination, Wrigley Field! With tears in my eyes I asked a stranger to take my photo in front and went to the Cubby Bear bar to call my family. I sat there for over an hour talking with the bartenders about my trip and they ended up not ch...
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