Day 9 (Thurs, 21 Feb)

How does one achieve excellence in life?  One step at a time – Step 9 (of 40) taken today!

I rode from Thatcher, AZ to Lordsburg, NM.  I made it into New Mexico about half way into the ride – my 3^rd state on the trip!  The ride was 80 miles with 2,400 ft of climbing.  The ride was primarily along US Hwy 70, had some climbs but was mainly run along a valley and then flat plains in between mountains to the east and west.   The wind was light in the morning and then picked up in the afternoon – a tailwind finally – I was able to final stretch out my legs and bike, putting in about 25 miles with speeds in the range of 18-24 mph, which felt really nice. Overall body is getting stronger by the day and I’m starting to work on a few cycling techniques that I’ve had a goal to improve – so all is going well!  Temperatures throughout the day stayed pretty cool – primarily in the 30s and 40s – so I had a chance to use my cold weather cycling gear that I’ve been lugging with me, and it worked great – a very comfortable ride.

About an hour into the ride I caught up to another long distance cyclist.  His name is Eddie (from New York) and is riding from the LA area to Austin, TX.  We had a great chat for about 20 minutes and then rode together for a bit and then I pushed on ahead of him.  He is the 4^th cyclist I’ve met on the trip – they have all been “tenting it” although Eddie mentioned that he had stayed in hotels for the last couple of nights during the rain/snow storm we had.

Also, the British rider mentioned below in Day 8, Dave Gill, sent me the link to his website, please check it out if you have a few minutes – very cool ride he’s doing: www.vaguedirection.com

On to the pictures:

The first picture is one my cousin Debbie took this week near their home in the Northern suburbs of Phoenix - a few inches of snow on the ground (she mentioned this is extremely rare for the area).

Pictures I took today: 1) the first few are from around my hotel in Thatcher, AZ (we had a lot of snow in the mountains around Thatcher last night and even a couple of inches fell at my hotel (but no meaningful accumulation on the ground)), 2) Palm Trees and Snow!, 3) the larger mountain in the initial pictures is Mt Graham, 4) pictures of snow on cactus along the ride and a snowball I made in AZ at about 3500 ft (no one to throw it at though…), 5) crossing into New Mexico, 6) scenery along the way (I’m at about 4,000 ft – so high desert plains) and a train (to me – they look so much cooler out in the open plains than where I typically see them in larger cities).

Finally, you’ll see a short video clip of 2 Marine SuperCobra attack helicopters (and a chase helicopter) that flew right over me today.  I was kind of hoping they weren’t doing target practice as I figured in my bright red coat I might make for easy pickings…