Day 5, Mile 421: Lake Havasu, Arizona

Today: 44 miles, 1148 feet

Cumulative: 421 miles, 17460 feet

Today was a blissful little hop back across to the California side of the Colorado River, up to Parker Dam which forms Lake Havasu and on to Lake Havasu City on the Arizona side.

This is what they're calling a rolling recovery day. Just what the doctor ordered! Not a whole day off, but only a three hour ride with the rest of the day to recuperate, do laundry, have a few waking hours off the damn bicycle besides just ride, eat, sleep, ride, eat, sleep... And, it was heaven! I felt really strong, even up the few substantial hills, despite my aches and pains and exhaustion. I've already begun losing belly fat--guess my body is in a big hurry to accommodate and adapt to this crazy new lifestyle. No complaints from me on that front. I'm saddle sore (saddle weary, really--my sit bones hurt), my knees ache a little, and I have limited strength and feeling in my right hand, my lips are chapped from the desert heat and air, and oh, and my quads are sore, duh. But the masseuse helps tremendously. I still have the cold, but that's another story.

I had lots of energy left after arriving and had a recovery milkshake with one of the riders, Mike, viewed the London Bridge (which was bought and reassembled here), showered, did the laundry, and tried the hotel pool. I attempted to get a group interested in renting jet skis, but strangely, not a single person was interested in returning into the blazing sun and 100 degree heat. So I went by myself. I took the jet ski up and down the lake a fair distance, drove it under the London Bridge (one of those things it seems you just have to do), and took a dunk in the wonderfully cool water of the Colorado River.

And now I'm ready to collapse and start again at 5 am tomorrow! We're off to Kingman, Arizona, 85 miles through, you guessed it, more desert, including lots of climbing. Forecast is for sun and 103 degrees. I have to keep reminding myself that I paid good money for this.

Day 4, Mile 377: Parker, Arizona

Today: 111 miles, 2799 feet climbing, temp 104 in the non-existent shade

Cumulative: 377 miles, 16312 feet

Another absolutely fabulous day, but absolutely grueling going so far in the brutal heat with an already exhausted body. The route took us through a wilderness section of the southern Mojave Desert with stunning, stunning views. A lot of glorious descending with beautiful new roads and zero traffic in the morning. It's funny how I think the mesquite desert is so ugly until I see it without any human disruptions except the road.

A long hot afternoon with not-so-nice roads led finally to a seemingly endless descent to the Colorado River with scary truck traffic on horrible roads. I must have drunk five gallons of liquids today. It was so hot that the iphone fritzed out, including reading Les Mis at fast-forward speed (arguably not a bad idea), and I had to turn it off.

That's Dave, one of the guides, in the photo. There are two guides and they trade off days in the saddle or the van. Another van circulates with an assistant and the masseuse. Dave is a bit of a kindred spirit, being pretty much homeless. During the time he's not guiding a trip, he just holes up at a hotel until the next engagement.

I am now beyond exhaustion. I arrived at 4:00, the last one again (two dropouts). My saddle time of 7:30 hours (14.7 mph) was only about 75 minutes off the main pack. But I did explain how I was doubly virtuous, not only riding alone the whole day, but having to work so much harder than the guys in better shape :-).

Tomorrow is a "rolling recovery" day--just 45 miles up to Havasu City. By my now current standards, essentially a day off entirely.

Day 3, Mile 266: Joshua Tree National Park

Today: 92 miles, climbing elevation 4311 feet (and 6085 feet descending)

Cumulative: 266 miles, 13513 feet

Today was as good as yesterday was bad. I was the first to leave the hotel at 6:30 am and shot off like an arrow into the pre-dawn light. It was cool and windless and I just flew across the beautiful newly surfaced roads gliding across the flat desert. Euphoric! I covered 20 miles in the first hour. Nobody even caught up with me until mile 45, right before the lunch stop. Then everyone passed me as we road up the three-mile long climb to the lunch spot. Lunch was in a pretty spot with a bunch of boulders perfect for jumping and climbing if only we were wearing anything other than bike cleats and weren't so anxious to move on as the heat started coming on. It wasn't even 10 am and it was already into the 90s. I rode out with the peletón and lasted for exactly 3.5 miles until the next hill. I seem to be able to hold my own with the group on the flat, but they are much, much faster on the climbs. I blame the lack of meaningful terrain in Uruguay. Maybe running would have helped. Well, I'm sure I'll improve as the trip progresses.

Got into the funky 29 Palms Inn at 1:30, second to last. I'm pleased with myself. Although I can't feel my fingers and don't think I'll ever be not tired again.

Tomorrow--biggest ride so far, 115 miles to Parker, Arizona. Forecast: sunny, 102 degrees. I will probably die.

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!!

Day 1, Mile 82: Valencia, California

Total elevation climb: 3386 feet.

Our group of 16 cyclists started off after a ritual wheel-dipping in the Pacific, down the coast and through historic Ventura. With all our combined nervous energy it was like a slingshot being let loose and most of us fell into a long peletón zipping along at over 25 mph. I even attacked a few times and pulled out ahead, such was my early exuberance.

Needless to say, I couldn't keep up that pace and eventually fell back. Once alone, I even took a wrong turn and added a few miles to my personal cross-country course. But I eventually found my way to the lunch wagon in Santa Paula at around the 50 mile mark. After lunch, I chose to ride alone at my more usual pace of about 15 mph winding along rolling country farming roads west of LA, then onto busier Rt 126, part of the historic Camino Real (the [Spanish] King's Road), where the farm laborers

were harvesting the vast acres of red chili peppers and finally into LA county and Valencia, home of Magic Mountain roller coaster park.

We were rewarded with rooms at the five-star Hyatt. Even though exhausted, I couldn't pass up a brief swim in the pool.

Day 0, Mile 0: Santa Barbara, California

What anticipation--a combination of nerves and excitement! If only I'd had another month to train...

Today I met my teammates, my guides, and my racehorse bici. Love the Trek Madone 6.5!

Can't believe I'm fighting off the beginnings of a cold.

Training: 10 days 'til start

Another fairly light day: 140 km (87 miles), 6:05 hrs, 23 km/h (14 mph), strong wind, occasional drizzle, temp 15 C.

Well, this was supposed to be the grand finale week of training, but has turned out to be an anti-climactic fizzle. After Monday's ride in the heavy rain and wind, I found I just couldn't bring myself to go out in the same miserable conditions on Tuesday and Wednesday. Did some weight-lifting and that was about it. My cleats were still not even 100% dry this morning (lesson: get a second pair to bring on the trip!) . I had taken off the little bootie covers on Monday since the zippers had eaten away the skin on the back of my calf. My solution to that today was to just not zip them all the way up--that worked fine. I managed to purchase a totally waterproof top which also, I discovered today, doubles as a great groundcloth for picnicking on the damp ground. Menu: Gatorade, Studentenfutter Klassische Mix Mit Rosinen (mmmm, 1000 quick calories in a single bag), some cereal bars, peanut M&Ms, caffeine and aspirin.

My average speed was a bit slow. I attribute this to the first hour and half where I was just trudging along. You'd think that after two rest days I'd be perfectly fresh, but that first bit was about as easy as chewing on pebbles and just as fun. I was heading into a strong headwind (15 mph), as well, which didn't help. In general, I like the strong winds since I figure it makes up for not having any real mountains to train on and also gives me some useful bike handling experience. Just imagine leaning into a strong cross wind only to have a double-trailer truck zip by momentarily blocking the cross wind and sucking you up into its trailing vortex at the same time and further throwing up a cloud of dirty mucky mist just for spite. Throw in some potholes, a horse cart and pedestrians and you get the idea...

Today my turnaround point was km 70 on Ruta 9. This coincides with the half-way point to Punta del Este (the most famous resort town in Uruguay) and the highest point along that route. I didn't leave the house until 11am and a turnaround here would bring me back to my doorstep at sunset. I hate riding in the dark, even though I always bring along my lights just in case. The last 30km is all bad neighborhoods, full of potholes, ill-lit, and full of car/bus/truck/foot traffic.

A bit of the old abandoned route is visible at this point, shown in the photo. If I had a decent camera and were a decent photographer you'd be able to pick out the old km marker and the really weird little single lane divided section towards the summit. The sign says: Prohibited: Smoking, Hunting, Fishing. They do have a big problem with forest fires in these eucalyptus tree plantations. Folks go in to plunder firewood and drop cigarette butts, etc. The trees (eucalyptus or pine) are grown exclusively for paper and constitute the most profitable use of rural lands except for the most fertile bits. As an indication, land prices have about quadrupled in real dollar terms since they started growing paper timber extensively around 20 years ago. The land is mostly owned by foreign interests, as you might expect.

Anyway, I was delighted to turn around here. From here back towards Montevideo is downhill for 20 km with only a few minor contrary hills and dips, until the Arroyo Solis Chico right before the toll-booth at km 50. That combined with the tailwind makes the experience euphoric. Those same 20 km took me better than an hour to climb, trudging against gravity and the constant headwind. Going back flies by at 40 - 50 km/h taking less than half an hour and seeming like five minutes. The pure joy is hard to describe. Note that with a tailwind there is no wind noise and the bike is absolutely silent. There isn't even much traffic on this section of road to spoil it. I'm listening to the super high fidelity music on the iphone, one minute Vivaldi's Four Seasons and the next belting out One Love at the top of my lungs along with Bob Marley. I probably make a funny sight, but with joy of the ride, the beautiful scenery zipping by, the endorphins generated by my effort, and the recent caffeine kicking in, I feel like a bird flying, soaring effortlessly, joyfully...thrilled. This is what it's all about!