Saturday was the annual Haddam Hounds Hundy out of Haddam, Kansas. If you've never heard of Haddam, Kansas you're probably in the majority. With a population of around 100 souls and way off the beaten path, most people will never cross paths with this little map dot located literally on the edge of nowhere Kansas off of Hwy 36 just 10 miles north of the Nebraska border. Platted in 1868, it's name borrowed from Haddam, Connecticut, it's never really been a hotbed of activity for the world traveler but there did exist a "rival" town of West Haddam if you can believe that. Both towns decided to merge in 1874 to form the megatropolis of modern day Haddam, such as it is. Haddam is home to the Brown Honey Farm which is Kansas's larges honey producer and they used to be home to Rev Honey before it moved to Missouri and then recently shuttered it's doors. Probably also not widely known Rev Honey was a pretty good soda type beverage sweetened with honey and they were starting to branch out to energy drinks and honey "gel" packets for energy during cycling and running events. Both products pretty decent also in their own right.
While it does have it's moments in history, Haddam today is probably best known, in the cycling community anyway, as the home of the Haddam Hounds Hundy. This year marked it's 7th occurrence, I have attended 3 of them myself and they all have been an adventure encompassing some gravel roads, some beautiful dirt roads and a smattering of "roads" that are barely, if at all, discernable from a farm field.
This years route was rumored to be a bit milder than the offerings of the past so we decided to give it a go on the Stormchasers and hoped we wouldn't regret that decision. After getting to the event and talking to Todd about the route, he did in fact confirm rumors were true and stated he did so because there were a lot of new people to the event that he didn't want to scare off. Not sure how to take that tidbit... so, it's okay to try to kill your friends but it would be a fopa to try to kill a group of total strangers? With friends like that, who needs enemies.
While there was not a single wagon rutted Oregon Trail type road on the course this year, it was not short on hills or rocky MMRs.
Kansas farmers seem to have a soft spot for the wind turbine, I can't remember how many of these sights we rode past on Saturday. Seemed like every couple of miles there was a new one sprouting up out of the ground. Not a huge fan of what they do to the gravel roads in order to get the big trucks down them myself, for a "green" energy source they certainly don't adhere to the adage of leave no trace when propping them up.
Our first SAG stop on route was at about mile 18 in the quaint little berg of Cuba, Kansas. Complete with what appeared to be a still operational blacksmith shop! Cuba, Kansas is named after the country of Cuba and there just happens to be a Geneva, Nebraska not too awfully far from Cuba, Kansas... an industrious gravel organizer could come up with a route to include both locations in a sort of a a Cold War Gravel Grinder if they were so inclined. It would have to be a big'un though since the most direct route between the two is already 60+ miles so to make a loop of it you would need to add a bit more than that.
Cows on course is always an interesting time and we had at least four smaller cows wandering about between Cuba and Agenda, Kansas.
Fun fact, more people are killed by cows each year than sharks! They look innocent but they are always watching and plotting your demise, just looking for the perfect time to unleash udder destruction on you.
Had an opportunity to draft off a swather also once I was able to catch it, they look slow but don't let that boxy shape fool you. One could argue that drafting off of a swather might be grounds for disqualification for outside help, I argue that the swather was available for everyone on course and thus fair game. Since Haddam isn't a race perse the point is a bit moot in this instance but the argument does have some merit.
Goat thinks it's a horse.
Our last urban SAG was in the tiny village of Agenda, Kansas with a population in the 40s now but once boasted numbers above 200 in it's heyday when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad still passed through. Not much is left now but it does boast an ice cream shop, a curio type shop and even a hidden garden. More on the garden is shown in the video link at the bottom, it's pretty impressive to be honest.
There wasn't much between Agenda and Haddam other than dilapidated houses and wild flowers to we made pretty quick work of the last 20ish miles before stopping into the Haddam Cafe for some burgers before heading home.
Check our the video on YouTube for the rest of the story as Steve Harvey used to proclaim.
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