Tour Day 101 Expect The Unexcpected Oct 4 2010

After an extremely hard end to the day yesterday I was ready to have a nice long sleep. 10 hours later I woke up and was ready to make the 140-mile gap to Springer Ville Arizona. I loaded down with 9 litres of water, a full load of food, and a full tank of gas.

Within the first 20 feet I knew exactly how the day was going to go. Right off the bat I had a stronger wind then I finished off the day yesterday with (roughly 12 – 15mph) and I had an extended climb out of town that lasted an hour. In that hour I only covered 6 miles. It was the slowest and hardest riding I have encountered yet.

When I summated the hill I saw the plains of San Agustin ahead of me. This was a dead flat space that extended 20 miles. I was extremely nervous about this because I thought that if the wind was bad in the hills then it would be 10 times worse in the open area. Fortunately I was mistaken and I got up to the whopping speed of 20km/h. By this time the sun was coming up but because of the elevation it was still cold as heck. Cold enough for me to dig out my winter gloves. Once I got heat back in my hands I could focus on the horizon. This is where I saw something unique, a radio observatory. I stopped to take a closer look for a few minutes. While I was stopped I heard a loud alarm then 10 seconds later they all moved at once to a specific location. I was amazed how quick they moved, and how elegant the whole thing was.

After plugging in my ipod I was back grinding down the road. Then it happened. You guessed it another flat. So let me set the scene. We are either 80 miles back to the next town or 100 miles ahead. The sun is just starting to peer out of the clouds, it is cold, and I have no circulation in my hands. I had one spare tube so I thought all was going to be peachy. All was not peachy because I was an idiot and pinched the tube. Ok back up plan I can use my patches to limp my way down the road a ways. After applying the patch and inflating to a lower then normal pressure I started rolling again. After 2km it was flat again. Peel and stick patches are useless.

So I am not stoked because I am only 45km into the day and im stuck. At this point I have only used .5 of the 9 litres of water I had on me. Luckily I was close to a gas station and at this station were two older gentlemen that were topping up their camper with fuel. I asked them if they were heading west to Springer Ville. They said yes. I then fallowed up with the question if I could hitch a ride to Springer Ville to get a few tubes. My hopes were high, but then they hit me with an answer of no because they had their guns in the backseat and did not have room. Accepting the answer I went on my way and started walking down the road. 2 Minutes later I see them waving frantically at me. After making my way back they said that they had moved the guns and had room for me in the back seat.

Once we were rolling we got to talking. In a way it was actually a good thing because they were both pilots, and one was a pilot for the air force. This gave me a chance to ask some questions that have been nagging in the back of my mind. Now this is the reason I love cards because as much as im trying to remember I cant for the life of me remember the name of these two fine gentlemen. I believe they were named bill and john but im pretty sure I am wrong.
We stopped in a small homestead and they said they were going to treat me to a breakfast, which was an unexpected surprise. This whole trip has made me a lot more confident with the way that I deal with strangers. When you approach people as your friend, and as if they are out to help you they are a lot more open to your stories and sharing their life with you. When I left I approached people as if they were out to do me harm. Now I know that sounds weird but most of us are guilty of that because as much as we try to ignore it a lot of us are judgemental. Case and point getting in a car after they say just let us move our guns.

Now in Arizona I expected the weather to be bright and sunny because most of this state gets between roughly 15-25 inches of rain a year. Well I managed to hit Arizona during those 15025 inches because it started to rain as soon as I hit Springer Ville. Looking at the forecast it does not look like it going to get much better because it shows three straight days of rain. Adding to my luck I have the largest gap of the trip tomorrow. The day is going to stat off with a 40 mile run into sho how, and then fallow that up with 116-mile gap into Globe. Because the first 40 miles I wont use any of my resources this is pretty much a 156mile gap. Great. Even better the western wing I had today is going to shift to a southern wind tomorrow. Guess what. I am heading south tomorrow. Adding to this apparently the road out of Springer Ville has some of the most brutal hills I have ridden to date. Lets see how far 9 litres of water gets me.

As much as I may sound chipper today I am very disappointed about the day not only for how little I accomplished, but also because I am watching my goal of maintaining my 150km average disappear day by day. About 700 miles to go till the ocean. If I don’t hit 16000km by the time I hit the water I am going o spend a few days doing some local rides because I simply cat return hoe without hitting that milestone.
Trip Distance: 47km
Ride Time: 2:56hr
Avg. Speed: 16.24km/h (shows you how brutal the ride was)
Total Distance: 15098km
Total Ride Time: 700hr
Destination: Springer Ville, Arizona

As a side not my body clock is completely screwed because I was just starting to get readjusted to mountain time, then I find out Arizona does not sue daylight savings. So it is Mountain Time but is actually the same time as Pacific Standard Time.