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Published: October 12th 2006
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Shawne says...
Day 12
Mileage Today: 60.3
Total Mileage: 513.1
Flats Today: 7
Total Flats: 15
Tubes used today: 2
I woke up and was feeling very "Mr. T"-ish. So, I decided to give myself a mohawk with my beard trimmer. I've never had a mohawk, and I am quite enjoying it! Jo loves it!
We enjoyed another free breakfast at the hotel. It was poor timing on our part, though. We walked into the restaurant to see an entire little league team AND a Special Olympics team taking up the entire seating area. We waited patiently as some woman complained loudly to the front desk about the lack of seating and the "dirty conditions". She said that as a paying customer, she should not be treated like this.
After repacking and attaching our trailers, we headed off to greet the day. Jo got a flat as soon as we walked out of the hotel. My bike felt clumsy and maneuvered lazily. The weight of the trailer seemed to have tripled and was feeling way too top heavy. Yesterday we were spoiled and now we had to learn how to ride with the trailers all over again. We'd deviated off
Shawne's Mohawk
"I PITTY THE FOOL WHO RIDES HIS BIKE CROSS-COUNTRY!" route by a mile or so to get to the hotel, but once we were back on track, we wove through residential streets and found ourselves on the Arizona Canal Bike Path. This is a long, wide swath of land that cuts a path right through Phoenix for nine miles. A huge concrete aquaduct full of water is parallelled on both sides by a ten-foot-wide asphalt path. Tall power line towers follow overhead with an enormous flood water spillway on the north side. The spillway is about 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep. It is concrete lined with random storm sewer pipes and tunnels entering through the sidewalls. We wondered how many homes had to be demolished to construct this through the city. It was a wonderful ride...smooth and clean. No debris...no litter. Every street that intersected the path had a tunnel constructed specifically for bikes to pass through. Again, we made our way through residential streets, crossing through Tempe, AZ. We entered another beautiful bike path along the Cross Cut Canal and glided across the smooth concrete. We encountered major road construction because the city is building a light rail system along Washington Street near the Salt River
and Papago Park. Wonderful condos dotted the route and we thought it would be a very convenient place to live...light rail right outside and major companies just across the street. We passed over the Salt River and North Scottsdale Road. Sailboats zipped along the water with ASU's stadium in the background. Continuing on toward Apache Junction, Jo got another flat. We had been warned two days ago by Rob at the bike shop that Arizona is the "flat tire capital of the world". We stopped near a building construction area to fix it. A large sickle-steel crane was lifting what appeared to be a huge concrete block about 75 feet in the air when the cables slacked and the block hurdled toward the ground! The impact sent dirt flying into the air as a very loud THUD echoed down the street. We actually felt the shockwave in the formation come through the sidewalk and shake our feet! "What in the world?", I yelled. Then, as if nothing unusual had happened, the crane operator tensioned the cables again and lifted the load back into the air. THUD! The gound shook once again. I've been around a lot of construction sites and
have seen many pieces of construction equipment employed in various ways, but I have never seen this before! The only thing I could think of was that this was some sort os foil compaction method For the next 10 minutes, the crane dropped the weight over and over as Jo repaired her flat on her rear tire. She finished and we prepared to depart.
Jo was putting her tools away when I looked down to see that her FRONT tire was now flat! Frustrated, Jo pulled her tools back out as we found another Goathead in her tire. I got on the phone to find the nearest bike shop. After leaving Tempe, there would not be another bike shop for around 150 miles-until Safford, AZ. We needed to load up on tubes and patch kits, as well as purchase some tire liners to prevent more punctures. Jo fixed her front flat and, with her hands blackened from road grime, climbed on her bike. We got another few miles when Jo got another flat. After repairing this one, we again went a few miles, and she got ANOTHER flat. Jo's frustration level was red-lining. It was 4pm and the bike shop
closed at 6pm. We only had a few miles to go, but at this rate we would not make it in time. We decided to forget patching and installed a new tube. A mile or so later.......another flat!!! To save time, we installed another new tube in the other tire and off we went. By this time, we were both frustrated . We were running late for the bike shop, we were losing daylight, and we had only ridden 28 miles for the day...far short of our intended 60. A homeless man walking his bicycle approached us and asked for some air for his tire. As we helped him out, he told us there was a soup kitchen down the street, and gave us directions for a free dinner. He said they serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to go! (Jo interrupts...He had an old, dirty, Listerine bottle clearly filled with amber-colored hard alcohol in his water bottle holder. When he smiled and thanked us for the air, we were only able to note two teeth!)
We made it to the bike shop and made our purchases. The bike shop owner told us many stories of different cross-country biking records (7 days, by his account), we headed out. We needed to get 30 more miles in, and Jo was not feeling up to it. (Jo interrupts again...I wanted to stay at a church. Any church. Any church, anywhere. Please today, just be over, for crying out loud!) Down the road, we found another QT gas station! HOORAY! I would finally get my White Cherry Slushy!!! I waited for Jo to shell out some cash, like a child waiting for his parent to give up some money for the ice cream truck. I ran into the store and grabbed a cup. There were no flashing lights on this machine, so I opened the valve. Nothing. I could see some of the iced treat spinning around inside the machine through the clear window behind the valve. There was some sort of an air pocket floating between the mixing paddles. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Denied once again, I settled for a gallon of cold water. It seems that is was not meant to be.
Once outside, I noticed my bicycle moving by itself. It was propped up against a wall very securely, yet it kept moving. I looked down and saw my rear tire had gone flat and as the bead was slipped off the rim, it caused the bike to move. Come ON! I fixed the flat, this time inserting the new tire liner we'd purchased. It was getting dark, so we turned on our taillights and headlights to leave. We came upon another Wal-Mart near Apache Junction and stopped to look for some more riding shirts for me. No luck. (Jo interrupts...We figured out that the shirts we've been looking for at Wal-Mart are only sold at Target!) Later we saw Superstition Harley-Davidson and snapped a picture for Jo's sign collection.
We reached the KOA campground and entered to check the rates. $22.50 to pitch a tent, according to the night registration booth. We went in to see what $23 bucks would buy us, and found that it was nothing but a patch of dirt and a picnic table. We passed and headed toward Highway 60. We found a lrger patch of dirt (about 5 acres!) behind a new housing development, all to ourselves. We set up camp with a row of flags flapping in the breeze that announced the way to the model homes. For dinner, we munched on PB&J crackers and canned chicken. We didn't fire up the stove because we didn't want to attract any attention to ourselves with it's flame. Off to bed we went, both of us thoroughly exhausted.
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Tracy
non-member comment
Hang in there
You guys are doing great. I love getting the updates. Keep it up!!!