Day 8: Superior to Globe
Started: Sep 25, 2010 7:21:40
Ride Time: 2:21:03
Stopped Time: 1:24:06
Distance: 24.96 miles
Average: 10.62 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 45.03 miles/h
Climb: 3815 feet
Calories: 1289
Kept today short. Partly to give myself a little break, and partly because there’s fuck-all for the next 92 miles, which I will try to cover tomorrow. That’ll put me in Safford, which looks like a good place to spend the night, and positions me well for the next couple of days after that, which will involve a hell of a lot of climbing. I feel like I’ve gotten to the point in this ride where I need to map out my schedule many days in advance.
I’m also at the point where I’m looking at some of the climbing ahead of me and getting scared. I see myself getting into Silver City NM in three days, and crossing Emory Pass the day after. The climbing and descending there will make today seem like a cakewalk. My planned ride for two days from now looks like even more total climbing, but not as steep.
Today’s ride was up a 6% grade for 10 miles, followed by about 5 miles of equally steep descending. On the climbing sections, there was a passing lane most of the time. This worked out better than the shoulder, which generally wasn’t bad, but not as good as the travel lane.
I also rode through the notorious tunnel. I didn’t consider it a problem. The passing lane ran through it, so I wasn’t holding up traffic. It was loud, but that’s the worst I can say about it. It interrupted my GPS track, unsurprisingly, and I didn’t reset it for a couple of miles, so the number shown in the log is low.
That put me into the town of Top of the World, which I would say is aptly named if I didn’t know I’d be ascending another 3000 feet above it soon.
On the descending side, I really had no choice but to take over the one travel lane. The shoulder was inadequate, especially given that I was descending at 45 mph, and the steering overreacts with 26 lb of gear cantilevered out past my rear axle. Not all motorists were entirely cool with the delay I imposed. I’ve said that the trick to climbing on this trike is to be patient, and the trick to descending is to be relaxed. Some of the descending today tested my ability to stay relaxed. And I know there’s much steeper ahead. I’m concerned that if I ride the brakes too much, I’ll warp my rotors. It’s exciting to go fast, but i still want to be reasonably in control.
I haven’t had any AT&T coverage since I left the Phoenix area. I’ve been entirely reliant on wifi when it’s available, which isn’t as often as I’d like.
From what I’ve seen of Arizona so far, it seems as if almost all the money in the state is in the Phoenix area. The small towns seem really poor. From what I saw of it, Phoenix and all the surrounding towns seem very well groomed. And i had no idea how many of Arizona’s cities were just extensions of Phoenix—Mesa, Tempe, Surprise, Scottsdale, Peoria, El Mirage, and so on. They put their city names on the street sign so you know which city you’re in, because they just run together.
