Day 11 - February 21, 2010 - Coast to Coast

Day 11 - February 21, 2010 - Coast to Coast

From the Stoker:

We did it! We made it through Phoenix. It was quite stressful, especially for the Captain. Lots of traffic the first 10 miles, then just plain city biking with a million stop signs and lights and turns. I spent most of the 51 miles with the map in my hand giving directions. We finished our day in Mesa, AZ and camping at a KOA, nice but expensive.

We weren’t sure we would be able to bike today after listing to the weather report last night, rain expected on and off all day. We left with a threatening sky but enjoyed a good amount of sun and got spit on only a couple times.

I left my camera in the camper worrying about rain and I am so sorry. The pictures I did not take was rows of beautifully shaped orange trees in peoples front yards loaded with oranges and the ground covered with them and many displays of colorful flowers. We biked on a beautiful bike path for about 13 miles and could have taken many pictures. I also would have taken a picture of Dick changing a flat tire.

I will respond to comments on our daily post. Mick, it is not a fish story but we did fail to mention that today was no wind and sometimes a tailwind. How about that!

Elliott, the water pictures were of the Colorado River in Ehrenberg, AZ. We never change place on the bike, Captain is always the captain, stoker always the stoker. The bike is sized for us that way. When a semi passes us, it pulls us along for a 100 yards and we love it. Yes, a tandem saves energy. You have the power of 2 and the air drag of one bike. I will make a list of the cities we will be going through and post it tomorrow. Thank you for your support and we are glad you are enjoying following our progress.

Impressions from the Captain:

Getting thru Phoenix was tough! Probably the most mentally tough day we have had. Constant stop and go, got lost 4 times, and then had to deal with two flat tires all while dodging the rain drops. We wanted to get thru today, being Sunday so we wouldn’t have to deal with rush hour traffic on Monday. When you have a flat tire you need to inspect the tire and tube and locate the cause of the leak so that you can remove it. Both of us went over the tube and tire with a fine tooth comb and couldn’t locate the cause so we assumed we had ridden over something that pulled back out. After about 10 more miles it was obvious that we had a slow leak so we called for Carol to come get us. She got lost and we had to wait awhile for her to find her way! Stressful for her.

The weather tomorrow is predicting another front coming thru that will probably ground us another day so I’ll spend the morning and replace both the tire and tube and look for the problem when we land in EL Paso. We are heading into the toughest part of the whole trip. We have several major climbs in the next four days much of it above 4000 ft. with one pass coming out of Silver City over 8000ft. The good news is we should be seeing some really pretty country in the Gila Wilderness area.