I got up in the dark and made my coffee under the light of my headtorch again. It's becoming a ritual at this point. Slowly I packed up my tent and headed off as the sunlight came up.

I was the only one on the trail for most of the morning, other than a coyote that crossed my path and pranced out into a field going hunting. At one point I caught and passed a guy out for his morning ride, it's not often I pass people on my big heavy touring bike.

As I got near the end of the main part of the spur, in Pleasant Hill, MO I started seeing a lot more people. The rail trail ended with a short section on the road into town. It was nice to get on some smooth surfaces but my brake was starting to do strange things. The lever was a little slack, so that means the pistons weren't opening up all the way. As I came up to a stop sign my brake actually got stuck on for a second, but I released the cable tension with a button and then suddenly had no front brake at all.

I pulled over and started to work on it. A stone had been trapped in the brake arm, preventing it from returning to open fully. And then when I released tension my brake cable entirely came out of the brake lever.

I was working on my bike upside down on the shade of a shop when a man approached me and offered his help. Turns out he has a lot of experience working on bikes but we couldn't quite fix it with my tools. He offered to take my bags round to his house around the corner and we could work on it in the cool there. I accepted his offer and we headed over.

His home was full of beautiful restored and renewed vintage bikes. He also had plenty of tools. I ended up putting in a new brake cable and that fixed the problem right away, it only took a few minutes with proper tools. I shared my journal details with him and he said he'd follow along, I'm probably going to be a week or more late posting this, so I hope you see it, James.

I realised I'd left my solar panel behind at the place I stopped when I flipped my bike over to work on it. Thankfully it was still there when I headed back. I went into the local diner for a big breakfast and to charge my phone for a while and get back into riding mindset.

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As I left the diner, Graham rolled in. He had dried blood down his leg, a dog in Chilhowee had bitten him on the way past. I'm glad I've been lucky, I've heard lots of stories of people with holes in their panniers or legs now. I reccomended the big omelette to him and headed off again.

The remainder of the Rock Island Spur into Lee's Summit isn't finished yet, but I had some nice narrow trails for part of it before joining fast rolling gravel roads. I encountered some of the first real hills I had in a while, but they were short. Eventually I came out into some small towns on paved roads, before eventually heading into another semi paved trail extension of the Rock Island trail.

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It was hot out, so about 1pm I had a short break in a tunnel to chat with people waking up back home. I'm amazed how much water I'm going through and there's not many places to refill.

Eventually I had to turn off the trail and start heading towards Olathe. I went along some back roads that were very hilly, I expected this area to be flat so that was a surprise. The road went through suburbs and alongside expressways and I followed it wherever it went. Eventually I rolled onto the Indian Creek Trail, which follows the creek all the way through to Overland Park, the city next to Olathe.

I barely noticed the border between Missouri and Kansas on this trail, they didn't have a big sign like they do on the highways. Following the creek was nice, and it was well shaded. One of the nicest trails I've ridden.

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Eventually though, good things have to end. In Overland Park, shortly after refilling my water, I had to leave the trail. Lots of sections were closed for repair and I kept having to backtrack. It took me a while but I eventually got back on track near Olathe. Andrea, my friend from the area contacted me and asked if I wanted to go out to get bbq with her brother.

It was a nice surprise after a hot and long day, so I gladly accepted. I headed into my motel, lifted my bike up the stairs and got ready to go out.

Kansas City is known for bbq so I knew if have it tonight, and it's nice to get driven there by a local that knows what places are good. I'd been talking to Andrea for years now but this is the first time we'd ever met. I gave her a gift of slightly molten Whittaker's chocolate from home and she and her brother drove me around Olathe to help me collect some supplies.

I decided I'd stay around another day, I was about due for a rest day at this point.

I tried to book into my motel for another night but they were full so I made a reservation for one down the road. Apparently it's not very good though according to Andrea so I'm glad it has free cancellation