Day Whatever: We're in Gila Bend

I missed a few days for lack of service and one long day in the saddle.
To read this in the correct order, read this post from the BOTTOM UP please!

Day 6
Today, from Dateland to Gila Bend was a short, 50.1 miles with a slight headwind and went fast. We had a number of miles on I-8 again and I was sailing along at 20+ and having a blast. Had a nice Mexican food lunch at Sophia's in Gila Bend. Now at the campground and typing this up while waiting for dinner.
It's also the first WiFi we have had.  I  have not had enough cell phone data bandwidth for PDAnet to let me use my laptop and updating this from my phone is a pain.
Oh, and our "End of Ride" pre-dinner, snack today was fresh, homemade guac and chips... Lord how I do hate roughing it.

Day 5
Yuma to Dateland was 70.1 miles. The longest to date. Also a headwind day but not too bad... Had a Date Milkshake! haven't had one in DECADES! I made excellent time and had a great ride. I may suck in the mountains (ascent AND descent) but this flatlander/Florida boy can fly on the flats, headwind or not.
Today we rode through the ag area where 90% of the romaine, broccoli, spring mix, etc  for the US (not Florida) comes from. It was a lucky chance the the fellow I was riding with and I arrived just as Bubba and the land owner arrived. The three of us got the "Senator and Congressmen" presentation. Here's a pic of me munching on HEADS of romaine. The gentleman just kept picking them and letting us (well, me) taste them. Let me tell you, they were amazingly sweet being so fresh.

Ferdi and I chowing down on Romaine

Campground in Dateland

Day 4
. We rode from Calexico to Yuma. We stopped at one of the strangest places on the planet: The Center of the World.... huh? I'm still not sure what it is and I was there!! The video in the normal building (IE NOT the pyramid) claims it is (and this is a quote) "The History of the World in Granite in Summary"....
How to put this gently: It's like a Frenchman, living in Arizona, laser engraved a Reader's Digest Condensed "History of the Wold" (from a VERY distinctly French point of view) onto thin slabs of Granite, glued them together in the shape of a prism with triangular granite endcaps so it looks like solid Granite, 100 foot long blocks, and tells everyone that they are "Guaranteed" to last 4,000 years....... Oh, and by the way, it seems that the location for the "Center of the World" was chosen from the seventh printing of a children's book..... You can't make this shit up. And please, don't ask me anything about it.. As your mom and dad used to say, "Look it up"....
The road to get there was terrible.. I mean TERRIBLE.. but when we left there and got on the old road to Yuma... THAT road was about a million times worse and it was 7-8 miles of teeth jarring, wheel breaking, brutal, broken road.
In Yuma we stayed in the National Guard Armory/Community Center and Wind Tunnel.... OK I'm joking about the wind tunnel part but the AC made the main armory/gym room the coldest, windiest room I have ever been in. We froze from the AC! I had to use everything I brought to sleep in: 10 deg sleeping bag, fleece blanket/liner and I wore fleece pants and a long sleeve T shirt.. AND still froze! I was FAR colder than in the Mountains east of San Diego! What a hoot.

The, uh, Center of the World

Yuma National Guard Armory and Wind Tunnel

Day 3
Boulevard to Calexico was scary/exciting. the first 16 miles were a hilly ride to the on ramp of I-8. then a 10+ mile serious downhill to the off-ramp to Calexico. I was on the brakes almost the entire descent, trying to keep my speed under 35-36 mph. A number of the upright folks experienced in mountain descents hit 40+ and a couple of the recumbents hit well over 50! It ain't le Tour but wow....
We Stayed in the Calexico Mission School's gym and were served vegetarian dinner and breakfast by the students as a fundraiser. The town across the street in Mexico (Mexicali) has suffered greatly since 9-11. In the 50s folks could literally walk across the street (any street) into Mexico to visit, shop or eat. Then after the typical checkpoints were put in you'd go thru and spend five minutes (if that) clearing Immigration and Customs. Now it's a two hour line of cars, many lanes wide... no one goes to Mexicali for dinner or anything else.
My Camera battery died so I don't have a pic of the descent but I'll get one form another rider and post it later.

Day 2 Alpine to Boulevard CA

Well it wasn't a very long ride today but it was brutal. We had LONG climbs and descents of up to 10% grade AND headwinds of 20 to 30 miles per hour with higher gusts! We even rode a few uphill miles on I-8 today.

The great news is that I rode with  a couple of guys who helped me find my climbing "rhythm" and I felt much better today than yesterday during the climbs and at the end. I was pushing too hard yesterday and today, even though most of the riders were complaining that it was much worse than yesterday, I actually felt much better about the ride. Don't get me wrong. It was a pretty brutal day but I never felt like it was too much. Many thanks to Roland, RO and PW! I'd have been a lot worse for wear without their help and advice!!!

And I had my massage at the end which made any stiff or sore muscles all go away!

I also hit 36 mph on descent. I discovered that not having hills in Florida to learn climbing on also means we don't learn descending skills either! I thought I was going pretty good, guardedly flying down hills at 33-35 mph in stiff, very gusty headwinds when my two companions passed me like I had got off to check the tires, easily clocking somewhere over 40 on the descents. Never before on a bike was I ever happy to see my speed drop below 25!

Tomorrow after a few hilly miles we hop on I-8 for a 13-15 mile descent into the desert then on to Calexico for 62 miles on the day. And a slight tailwind is expected too!

cruising along on Interstate 8

our first tumbleweed sighting

Day 1, San Diego to Alpine

Well day one is in the bag. For this Florida flatlander it was a hard day. Up to 13% grades with a headwind!

I did have fun and rode with and had a great lunch with some nice people.

Dinner here in Alpine was salad, prime rib, chicken, roasted veggies, baked potatoes and brownies for dessert! Not too shabby for a bicycle camping trip huh?

Tomorrow is even more climbing :-( but the great news is that I have booked a massage with our in house masseuse for after the ride!

Is all this just plain decadent or what?

What is seriously cool/interesting/startling, at least to me, is how relaxed and unconcerned I am. I am so use to being in charge of every detail, every aspect of everything when I bike (or just about everything) . I am usually spending all my time thinking about and planning and worrying over whatever needs to be done later that day or the next day or the next. I am really enjoying not having to concentrate on basically, ANYTHING but riding.  Very different for me and very cool.

Being the guy who always likes to take care of others, I find I could get used to being pampered!

Posting this from my phone, in my sleeping bag in my tent with poor data service here in the mountains. I'll try to add some pics but might have to wait to do that tomorrow afternoon with the campgrounds Wi-Fi.

the traditional dipping of the rear wheel at departure

somewhere east of SD

home for the night

Hello from San Diego!

I arrived in San Diego yesterday, managing to just miss the storms, floods and bad weather that just left SoCal. The hotel is great, right on the beach and a few yards from the bike path we will depart from Saturday morning.

Met Bubba Baron, our fearless leader and some of the staff. Very nice people all!

I've been busy unpacking my stuff from the boxes I shipped to the hotel, organizing and repacking it all into my allotted duflel bags, wandering around Ocean Beach and mostly eating way too much great food!

Went to South Beach Bar & Grill for excellent fish tacos last night and to Hodads for a HUGE Bacon Cheeseburger for lunch today. It was WAY too much food but in my lame defense I could only manage to eat 1/2 of it so that burger is gonna be dinner tonight and probably breakfast tomorrow tooo! Tomorrow night will be the OB Noodle House... See,  this way I can probably fast till St Augustine... Unless of course we manage to stumble across more DD&D eateries!

Roger at Bernie's Bike Shop did a great job assembling my bike before my arrival so I went out and did some intervals this morning and will plot a longer ride up in Mission Bay for tomorrow AM.
Couldn't be better!

at Dog Beach in Ocean Beach

Waiting game...

Click to view Bob's Autobiography

Shipped the bike out on Thursday and the two boxes of my gear on Friday to the bike shop and hotel in San Diego....

Let's hope FedEx doesn't lose anything or I might be WALKING across the US of A and sleeping on dirt!!!! ;-)

The Blue Wild Expo for freediving and spearfishing is here in Ft Lauderdale this weekend and my buddy Bob Croft is here selling and autographing his autobiography and my dear friend Martin Stepanek will have the FII booth set up (before he moves to Kona next month!) so I am booked for the next two days and will probably get in no training but I WILL have a good time with my friends!

Life is truly worthwhile when you have great family and friends!

Two Weeks to go!

Well, V and I managed to spend a few days in Inverness last week and rode 120+ miles on the 46 mile long Withlacoochee Trail giving me 250+ for the week. If you want an absolutely beautiful, peaceful bike path to ride, this is the proverbial IT. Overhanging trees full of Spanish Moss, great places to stop, friendly people everywhere, all with not only NO cars on the trail but the road crossing are miles apart. This is a great bike trail, so far, our favorite in Florida. Inverness was a nice, busy, small town with lots going on.

Back home in Lauderdale now and riding as much as I can on the Habanero. I will be packing it up tomorrow (Wed, Feb 19) to ship to San Diego on Thursday the 20th. It will be going FedEx Ground so I have to ship it out early. I'll ride my Specialized RockHopper 29 and my Bianchi Volpe here in Florida for the next couple of weeks till I leave.

My packing for this trip is a lot like a Keystone Cops movie!  I pack stuff, take it out, forget what I packed where and then unpack it all again.
I also have to make sure that every item I have is marked with my NAME, just like summer camp!!!  Since our laundry will be done "Family Style" (meaning all in one huge load) we will all need to locate our clothes out of a big pile. I feel like a seven year old!

I am trying to be logical about all this packing stuff...
I am trying to set up three perfectly sized bags: one for Tent Stuff, one for Clothing and one for Spares. The spares bag will stay in the truck/baggage van while the others will be in the tent with me nightly.
I am trying for some serious organizational excellence here.
I am failing miserably! ;-)
Had they told me it all had to fit into four panniers, I'd be golden... as is, I am overwhelmed with being able to take far too much IMPORTANT STUFF ... (that I am SURE I will never use...)

Withlacoochee Trail (click to enlarge)

Honor System Jams and such (click to enlarge)

How quickly we become jaded...

So, please don't pay any attention to the guy behind the curtain below who said he'd never be able to fill his duffle bags for this trip. I mean, really, what does HE know?

I have (singlehandedly I might add) managed to fill MORE THAN FULL three LARGE duffle bags (well, a 24", a 30" and a 36" duffle) for this trip... Who knew?  It's like taking a kid into a candy shop.. well not really, no kid would be dumb enough to state at the get-go they couldn't eat ALL the candy in the store....

Seriously? I have to pare down?? Seriously???

The bike is all set to go: with brand new 700x28s Schwalbes, SKS fenders, Avid brakes, Jagwire cables, Dyad rims, FSA handlebar, Profile Design aerobars (for a thousand miles+ of truly fun headwinds) and new cassette, crank and chain.. Same old Ti frame, saddle and rack. She rides great and stops on a dime.  I'll take a pic tomorrow at PMP and post it on the Gear page.

I have arranged for the shipping box and shipment to San Diego (via FedEx) to arrive at the recommended bike shop a few days before I arrive on March 4th. I'll pack a few items in with the bike, ship an additional box to the hotel and take just one or maybe two bags on the airliner. Shipping a large box for $30 thru FedEx to San Diego will a be a LOT cheaper than that nasty, $150 highway robbery fee for the third bag!!!

At just under 5 weeks to go, I am getting in well over 200 miles a week of hard rides, intervals and moderate effort long rides so I should be as ready as I can without hills to train on. My neighbor has set us up to ride a charity ride in Palm Beach on Feb. 15th so those 62+ miles should be fun and good training but still flat.

Truth to tell, being a warm weather kinda guy, the COLD has me lots more worried than the hills. The other riders should thank me: I have bought enough cold weather clothing to virtually guarantee everyone that we will have a terrible heatwave every day across the southern USA for two months, not those high 20s/low 30s morning starts they had last year!
Doug