Day 2, Mile 174: Victorville, California

Today: 92 miles, climbing elev 5816 feet

Cumulative: 174 miles, climbing 9202 feet

Not a fun day...

The five-star hotel turns out to have really crappy service and it took over an hour for breakfast and I was, naturally, served dead last. By the time I was out the door at 7:30 am, all the slow people had long gone and so I ended up riding the entire day alone. So much for having all these folks to share the wind load. And, naturally, today there was a tremendous head wind.

The day started with a 20-mile climb through the beautiful Bouquet Canyon in Angeles National Forest. I really enjoyed the climb, even though it was really tough for me. There certainly is nothing to compare to it anywhere in Uruguay! On top we emerged on the high desert plains and...a head wind. Riding against a headwind for the remaining 70 miles in the hot desert on crappy, busy roads was, like I said, not fun. I was in the saddle nearly 8 hours, arriving at the hotel dead-last (there was one dropout) at 4:30 pm. The sun was intense and I missed a few spots with the sunscreen and have little sunburn patches on my leg, shoulder and face.

I found one pathetic little mesquite tree to stop under around mile 60, but other than that it was sun, sun, sun. Thanks to the marvelous Trek Travel folks, though, going back and forth in the vans, I never lacked for water or nourishment.

There was a point near the El Mirage dry lakebed (photo) where I was cursing my fate, kind of like a mantra, "... fucking wind, fucking bumpy fucking road, fucking traffic, fucking trucks, fucking sun, fucking heat, fucking butt-ugly desert, fucking 23 miles left, fucking wind, fucking bumpy fucking road, ..." It oddly helped somewhat.

Happy biking! 90 miles to Twenty-Nine Palms tomorrow. Woo hoo!!