Practice Ride 1 – 1/12/09 – 72 Miles
(Note: This should give you a somewhat accurate indication of these will look like with some exceptions. First, I didn’t film a video that day, but that will never happen on the trip. Secondly, I am hoping once the trip gets going there will be more interesting interactions with people. There aren’t many people in the desert, sadly. Also there will probably be more pictures in each entry as well.)
(Note 2: To see large versions of the pictures just click on them.)
I figured that it would be a good idea to do a practice ride before setting out on the real trip, so when I got back to Arizona from Winter Break I spent a couple of days planning a route, and early one Monday morning, after only two hours of sleep (mostly from excitement) set out for a three day trip out towards eastern phoenix. I had recently read this journal and planned on doing something similar.
I pulled out of my complex at around 7:30 in the morning with my bike all loaded up, and preposterously poorly packed.
So anyway, I went out to Southern, the arterial road I live on, and as I am crossing the street, my entire back rack fell off. I kid you not, it was dragging on the ground behind my bike. I had ridden literally 1000 feet and I had already lost my entire back rack.
I cursed some, ignored the rush hour traffic staring at me, picked up my rack and pushed my bike back home. There I did some duct tape repairs to my rack after getting everything back together and set back out at around 8:15.
After I got through that, it was very smooth for a few hours. I rode east through Mesa, and had absolutely no issues.
Finally I got out to Power Road, which is basically the end of Phoenix, and did several calm hours with little traffic and beautiful scenery.
Eventually I got to Lake Saguaro, then the fun began. I would estimate that there was three or four miles that took me around an hour to do. It was absolutely straight uphill. There was frequent stopping and drinking and eating of dried ramen (yum). By the time I got to the top of the hill (the intersection of Bush Highway and 87) it was in the heat of day, and I was down to a bottle and a half of water.
From reading the journal earlier I knew that there was nothing in Sunflower, which was the next closest town north, and I had no idea if there was a gas station or anything between where I was and Payson. I didn’t have the water to camp out over night and cook. I found a spot in the trees off the road and took a three hour nap and think about what to do next.
When I woke up I decided to just head back towards Phoenix on 87. If it was the real trip I would have waved down some cars and seen if there was anything coming up, or if they had any water, but I didn’t want to make a total ass of myself on a practice ride. Luckily the entire ride home was straight downhill, and I got to stop at Taco Bell in Fountain Hills.
So I got home at around 8, having had failed, but this was a failure in which I had learned a lot about what needs to be done. As long as I always have duct tape, and get water frequently (even if it is only to top off a bottle or two) I should be fine. Well fine enough to survive anyway :-P.