Today I rode: 80 miles, 4700 feet of climbing, some heavy cross and head winds in places.
Cumulative: 754 miles in 9 riding days, 35500 climbing feet.
Today's ride followed a wonderful entire day of rest at the Grand Canyon. But, I could have used a couple more... To start I had to wait over an hour to get a table in any restaurant last night and didn't get to bed until nearly 10 pm. It sounds funny that I consider that so late, but when you have to get up at 5 am, it is. Then I slept a bit fitfully, what, between my cold which is now a cough (how many more days!?), and the most dreaded sound to a cyclist--howling wind. The start was late (7:15), cold, and windy. I had on two layers of shorts, leg warmers, arm warmers, and a wind breaker, thinking back almost wistfully to a few days previous and the 100+ temp.
We made our way out along the beautiful south rim of the canyon through ponderosa pine and pinon/juniper forests, out to Desert View, about 30 miles. This is a gorgeous spot with a 1930's watchtower designed by Colter and a number of us stopped and checked it out. Then there was a long, long descent down to the Painted Desert along Route 89 and 160 and into Tuba City, the heart of the Navajo Indian nation.
There was a really fierce cross-wind down the descent which was difficult and scary, but it was nothing compared to the 16-mile long stint up Route 89 dead against a howling 20-30 mph head wind along with heavy traffic and a shoulder that was narrow and kept us hemmed in between the sand on one side and the rumple strip and the speeding semi trucks and RVs on the other.
Today my hero was Greg ("Doc") who pulled along a couple of us slower riders on his wheel for 12 miles of this pure hell until we all gave up and rode in the van for the last 4 miles of that treacherous stretch. The last 11 miles into Tuba City through the surreal Painted Desert--an alien and dead landscape that feels more like the surface of the moon or Mars--though windy and uphill, was more normal riding. We lost our first hour in time zone change and arrived around 5 pm.
Tomorrow is a long day up to Mexican Hat, Utah, through the Monument Valley--think Thelma and Louise. Oh, by the way, we are now 25% of the way across the nation!
Today's ride is dedicated to the memory of Norma Goldschlag, who loved all the scenic highways of her beautiful Arizona. She was a wonderful and loving grandmother to my kids and will be terribly missed.
What a lovely post. We're enjoying following your progress. Henry adores the blog and the video footage. I think you should also keep count of how many feet you get to descend once you have climbed....presuming that what goes up must come down.....
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear it! Henry, I want you to come with me some time just as soon as you're big enough! With respect to the descending elevation, I have that, but it doesn't really count in terms of effort or time--to the first approximation we spend all of our time climbing :)
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