Epic Day. 135 miles through the desert. We left Palm Springs at dawn and a temperature of 60 degrees. The temperature climbed to a blistering 109 degrees. If that wasn't bad enough, we traveled on the shoulder of Interstate 10 for at least 50 miles; having to dodge the rumble strips, and the shredded truck tire debris and all manor of road trash. Unfortunately, we lost a rider to a fall today. The rider was from Germany (63 years of age), he was riding with a group of other riders (we had been riding with him all morning, and had just passed him) and he overlapped his front wheel on the person in front of him (another German, living in Houston). He went down hard. Definitely has a concussion and perhaps a broken leg or pelvis. That was a wake-up call, to always be vigilant.
Between hydrating, eating, showering, get bike packed for next day, etc., not much time to blog. From hotel to hotel, we were on the road for over 9 hours (a little over 7 hours ride time). I've solicited Tim Rohrbaugh (who rode with Jere and I in 2009, but couldn't make this trip) to be my IT guy and spruce up the blog with some pictures, and downloads. I'll have to forward him stuff to add, bear with me. In the meantime, check out the blog of the America By Bicycle; hopefully, Tim will be able to add the address to this blog posting.
Tomorrow, 5.5 miles to the Calif. / Arizona boarder, total milage 116 miles (30 + on interstate 10 again, then a lot of boring miles along highway 60), projected temperatures, only in the 90s.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Day 1, Easter Sunday, April 20, 2014
Jere, Dave and I spent Easter Sunday riding from the Pacific to Palm Springs, Calif. When dipping the wheels in the Pacific (Jere and I didn't, since we're not neophytes), we saw the Easter Bunny on the Beach (The day before we saw a Unicorn in Long Beach ... only in California; I have pictures to prove it. We rode 117 miles up hill into the desert. We spent a lot of time riding on bike paths and rode on interstate 10 briefly. Tomorrow's ride is advertised at 136 miles, all desert. I doubt I'll be writing anything after tomorrow's ride.
Jere was sociable for the first 100 miles. We had a headwind into Palm Springs and the three of us were taking turns drafting. We passed two riders in the group and they jumped on the back. When they didn't rotate to the front to take their turn in the wind, Jere didn't say anything, but his actions were louder than words. He accelerated to shake them from our tails. Dave later ran into the guys in the laundry room and had to them, Jere really is a nice guy.
Gotta go, time to go to bed for the day tomorrow. I have a learning curve on the blog; as we go along, I'll try to add more stuff ie. links and pictures.
Jere was sociable for the first 100 miles. We had a headwind into Palm Springs and the three of us were taking turns drafting. We passed two riders in the group and they jumped on the back. When they didn't rotate to the front to take their turn in the wind, Jere didn't say anything, but his actions were louder than words. He accelerated to shake them from our tails. Dave later ran into the guys in the laundry room and had to them, Jere really is a nice guy.
Gotta go, time to go to bed for the day tomorrow. I have a learning curve on the blog; as we go along, I'll try to add more stuff ie. links and pictures.
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