[sgpx gpx=”\/content\/gpx\/st2010_6.gpx”]<\/p>\n
Started: Sep 23, 2010 6:44:43
\nRide Time: 8:22:16
\nStopped Time: 2:31:37
\nDistance: 111.31 miles
\nAverage: 13.30 miles\/h
\nFastest Speed: 69.27 miles\/h
\nClimb: 7555 feet
\nCalories: 5915<\/p>\n
Another long day in the desert and my first century day on the tour. When I was studying today’s route last night, it looked like about 30 miles of climbing followed by 70 miles of descending.<\/p>\n
I got off to an early start with the rising sun, and it was actually chilly, which lit a fire under me to ride faster and warm up. I also thought that I’d be able to get the climbing out of the way early, before the day heated up.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, the first ~45 miles was climbing, and pretty grim. After I stopped in Wickenburg for lunch, my spirits improved considerably, and the grade changed in my favor, so I was able to whip along at 16 mph or better most of the way into Phoenix. By the time I was inside the urban area, i was ready to start taking it easy, and the canal bike path was just my speed\u2014actually very nice to ride on.<\/p>\n
I was on US 60 all the way into the metro area. Up until Wickenburg, it was a lightly-trafficked two-lane road. The shoulder was plenty wide, but often rough and debris-strewn, so I just rode in the travel lane. After Wickenburg, it turned into a 4-lane divided highway; the road was good but the shoulder was lousy. Motorists were less happy here about sharing the lane with me, and prudence required that I spend part of that leg on the shoulder. Closer to the metro area, the shoulder was excellent, and I could really crank it.<\/p>\n
One I got into Sun City, I noticed houses on one side of the street had green lawns, while on the other they landscaped with rocks. I wondered if the lawns could be attributed to conspicuous consumption or hallucinatory midwesternism. I noticed other homes, closer in, that apparently landscape with cast-off miniature-golf course props, like windmills and wells. And I totally dig using saguaros for landscaping.<\/p>\n
When I was planning this tour I imagined logging 100 miles a day, every day. Hahahahahahah. Oh, I crack myself up in hindsight. I heard there’s another guy who started a day ahead of me who had the same plan and at least for the first couple days was keeping to it. More power to it. Perhaps once I get past all these fucking mountains it’ll be easier to log 100-mile days. But I’ve got a hell of a lot of climbing before I get there.<\/p>\n
Right now I’m at the home of an old friend from Austin, Carlos. It’s an important opportunity to do some laundry and fix a couple minor issues I’ve been having. Plus a valuable chance to catch up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[sgpx gpx=”\/content\/gpx\/st2010_6.gpx”] Started: Sep 23, 2010 6:44:43 Ride Time: 8:22:16 Stopped Time: 2:31:37 Distance: 111.31 miles Average: 13.30 miles\/h Fastest Speed: 69.27 miles\/h Climb: 7555 feet Calories: 5915 Another long day in the desert and my first century day on the tour. When I was studying today’s route last night, it looked like about 30 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ride-report","category-southern-tier-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}