Contributor: Kevin Kiser
Cookies, Combines, and a Welcome in the Middle of Nowhere
If you pedal the Northern Tier route long enough, you might eventually reach a quiet country road a few miles from Royal Center, Indiana. At the end of that road is a farm with a small sign by the driveway. It doesn’t say “hotel” or “vacancy,” but cyclists know they’ve arrived.
It belongs to Frances Kiser, who has been opening her home to traveling riders since long before Warmshowers even existed.
“I’m not a cyclist—just a host.”
Visitors often assume they’re staying with someone who shares their hobby. Kiser laughs at the idea.
“I don’t bike,” she says. “I’m too busy baking cookies.”
Her son Kevin is the one who introduced her to the Warmshowers platform. He created her hosting profile with one simple plan: strangers could pitch a tent in the yard until his mom got to know them. That’s still the basic arrangement—except, over time, the tent invitations often turn into home-cooked meals, hot showers, and beds.
And if Frances is away? Cyclists bunk in the machine shed, where a high-jump pad makes for a surprisingly comfortable mattress. There’s even a little fridge and stove to use.
Unexpected farm tours
For most riders, an overnight at the Kiser place turns into an unexpected rural adventure. Depending on the season, guests find themselves cycling between walls of corn, watching seeds go into the soil, or climbing up for a slow, rumbling ride in the combine. Kevin likes to give tours when farm work allows.
One year, two recent high-school graduates enjoyed the farm so much they asked to stay an extra night. Frances ended up doing their laundry and even phoned their moms to report they were alive, safe, and well-fed.
“They liked the food,” she says with a proud shrug.
Memory books and postcards from everywhere
Kiser has been keeping track of her guests since before smartphones made it effortless. What started as pictures in a shoebox became two thick binders filled with photos and handwritten notes—her own and her guests’.
A visitor from Sweden thanked her for the “tastiest eggs and the healthiest fruit.” Another wrote that she and her son embodied the “American spirit of kindness to family, neighbors, and strangers.” Several joked about staying “in the middle of nowhere.”
“Even nowhere has to be somewhere,” Frances likes to answer. “And I like this somewhere.”
Gymnasts, vegans, and one woman on horseback
Among the many travelers in her albums, a German couple who happened to be enthusiastic gymnasts stands out. They tried their first chocolate-chip cookies, their first strawberry jam, their first John Deere combine ride—and their first game of pickleball—before leaving Kiser with a perfectly balanced handstand photo.
Another favorite memory came from a cyclist who couldn’t eat her famous cookies because he was vegan. Instead, he received a full spread of vegetables and fruit. Before leaving, Frances tucked a baked potato into his bag for the road. Hours later, he sent a selfie eating it on the move: “This potato just powered 20 miles.”
How it all started
The habit of inviting cyclists in didn’t begin online. It began in 1987, on a wet Indiana afternoon. Frances spotted two drenched riders outside a grocery store and offered them a dry place to stay. They were thrilled to backtrack several miles for a warm bed. She even wrote letters to their mothers afterward to let them know their daughters were safely on the road.
She does it, she says, because she believes anyone willing to pedal hundreds or thousands of miles is probably motivated by curiosity—not malice. “Why would someone ride all that way just to cause trouble?”
Warmshowers simply gave her a bigger porch to wave from.
Guests become family
Cyclists often arrive as strangers but leave as something closer to extended family. Some send postcards from new countries. Some return years later with spouses or children. Some never forget her cookies, jam, or the view from a combine cab.
What Frances remembers most is simple: “They bring the world to my doorstep,” she says.
In return, she hands them fresh food, hot showers, stacks of memories—and sometimes a baked potato packed for the road.
