Picacho Peak State Park, Arizona

They will see us waving from such great

Heights, 'come down now,' they'll say

But everything looks perfect from far away

'come down now,' but we'll stay...
- Ben Gibbard

We hit our highest mileage of the trip yesterday, clocking in at 93 miles.  It was tough trying to get out of Phoenix, hitting stop light after stop light, we finally hit some open country road around mile 30 but  because of the slow start didn't hit our destination for the night until around 3 pm.  We stopped at Casa Grande national monument right around lunch, it's an ancient Sonoran desert farming community dating to the 1200's (pretty frickin old!).  It was a nice mid day break before the final push for home as we were all getting pretty baked by the midday sun.  Picacho Peak is located about 40 miles northwest of Tuscon and was the best camping experience I've ever had (out of 2 beating last week).  A group of us decided to hike the 2 mile steep ascent to the peak of the mountain before dinner, a pretty wise decision after the day we had in the saddle but I guess you only live once right? I've never been hiking in my life so had to learn on the fly about proper footing but it was totally worth the time and burning quads for the view we got to the peak. By the time we got back down the sun was beginning to descend behind a range of hills in the distance and the colors that streamed across the desert were absolutely gorgeous.  The rest of the evening was spent by the camp fire telling stories, drinking beer and roasting marshmellows for smores.  Night time in the middle of the desert, miles from any town brought billions of stars out and the astronomers in the group pointed out constellation after constellation until I was more confused then when they started but I'm sure I learned something. It was much warmer camping this time so I was able to get a good nights rest before the short ride into Tuscon this morning.  Were staying at Jewish Synagogue near the University of Arizona campus, where we have a big event planned tomorrow. With a day off tomorrow from riding, most of us are heading out on the town this evening to check things out, we hit the road again on Saturday morning. No chain!

The ruins are in the background.

Pete & Tim. I spend a lot of time on the road with these two buzzes.

Cruising up the final hill.

Our tent for the evening, and the peak we climbed.

The hike up the "trail"

The view from the top, you can see our campsite about mid picture.

Improving at the "outdoorsy" thing, at the top.

Cacti along the way

Sam tried to pick one up on accident, he has farther to go with the outdoorsy thing than me.

I dont know if i trust this sign.

Sunset. I'm not good enough at words to describe it.

Pete & I are prettier at sunset.

Maggie's camera does fancy stuff.

Maggie and Katie's new helmets.

Another new look for me.

Phoenix, AZ

What a recovery day! After our talk at the University of Arizona we pulled into a little piece of heaven or more properly a little piece of the promised land at the Jewish Center of the Valley of the Sun.  After a couple of nights in wrestling rooms and a church basement floor this place was exactly what the team needed.  We all worked on our tans by the outdoor pool, hit the weights in the gym then headed for the sauna and hot tubs (aka a real "schvitz" for my Columbus crew).  Tonight we went to a hole in the wall (my favorite kind of place) family run Italian joint and got all carb loaded up for our 96 mile trek to Picacho Peak state park. Can't wait to get back on the road.  No Chain!

The beautiful entrance to the Jewish Center

Suns out, Guns out?

Underwater pictures, kids our age shouldn't have this much fun with a camera.

Ristorante Giuseppe's - Scottsdale AZ

Buckeye, AZ

Yesterday's ride was 88 miles from Dateland to Buckeye Arizona. Buckeye was named after the number of Ohio residents that had moved to the area so it was a fitting place for us to spend the night. We started the morning by meeting the students whose gym we crashed the night before, we gave a short talk about who we were and where we were from then hit the road.  A pretty substantial tail wind and pretty flat roads along interstate 8 got our average speed for the first 50 or so miles to right around 27 mph which is a lot of fun when you're in a big group.  One of the best parts of the first week had been getting to watch the progression in skill and comfort level with the bike for some of the more inexperienced riders, our front group continues to grow every day and sharing the road with them has been a lot of fun.  The weather has been beautiful, lots of bright sunshine and luckily we've been finishing most of our days ride before the afternoon sun really begins to beat down on the pavement.  We made it in to town right around 1 pm and couldn't get into the school we were staying at in Buckeye until around 4 so we headed to the local watering hole Las Posistas for some afternoon margaritas, which quickly turned in to crashing the place all the way through the national championship game. With only a 30 mile ride from Buckeye to Phoenix today, everyone took the opportunity to have some fun and we definitely had a lot of laughs.  We just arrived at the University of  Arizona College of Medicine to give a lecture, its a beautiful campus right in the middle of downtown. This afternoon we are headed for the Jewish Community Center in Scottsdale, it has a pool so everyone is really excited to get there.  Tomorrow its back to camping, hopefully it'll be warmer this time around.  No Chain!

The students at the morning lecture

Our first rest stop at an old school gas station

The front group stopping for a flat.

I never get tired of the scenery.

Im 1/2 a Buckeye so it works.

We all celebrated with margaritas

Libby celebrated by jumping in a bush.

Dateland Dance Party

Dateland community school (elementary thru high school all in one) is one of 2 buildings in Dateland Arizona, the other being the local convenience store, and were all sitting out in front of the school enjoying the beautiful evening.  Another 80 miles of cycling down, the scenery improved a lot today, we passed through a lot of mountains and farms over mostly flat roads.  A solid group of 10 riders led today which with everyone taking pulls on the front bumped our average speed to close to 21 miles per hour for the day putting us into this metropolis before 1:00 pm local time, giving us a lot of time to kill before bed time.  So far we've had multiple games of horse on the basketball court, an easter egg hunt, and an incident with a school bus that we can't go into details about. We also all (for the most part) experienced  and survived our first earthquake! It was located in Baja, California which were super close to right now and was measured at 7.2, the school we were in was definitely swaying so I ran as fast as I could to the parking lot! Overall its been the best day so far, we all needed good roads and a shorter day in the saddle after the beating we took yesterday so it's been a great recovery period (never thought I would say that about 80 miles of cycling). We figured out the sound system in the gym so were planning an Easter dance party for later. Tomorrow we head to Buckeye Arizona where were making a stop for obvious reasons and then its on to Phoenix. No Chain!

The only shade for a water break in a looooong ways.

                                      

Some of today's scenery.

Couple of the dorks on the road.

Mountains & Farms, Mountains & Farms, Repeat

Dateland is famous for Date Shakes, obv.

So of course after cycling 80 miles I had the largest one they make.

Passed so many border patrol the last couple days, had to get a photo with one.

Our new look to fit in with the locals

Kids. DO NOT get on this man's bus.

Explaing the rules of the easter egg hunt.

Just covering all of our sports.

  "There are clubs you can't belong to, neighborhoods you can't live in, schools you can't get into, but the roads are always open."

First few days...

It's begun!  3 days of riding  down covering close to 200 miles of California and Arizona so far.  The climbs out of San Diego were unbelievable, on day 1 the team rose 6300 feet vertically to end the day at Lake Morena national park.  We camped out on night number one, a first for me and it was definitely an experience.  The thing about the desert is, it's super hot during the day and freezing at night.  It dropped down to 34 degrees and no number of layers that I put on could keep the cold out, and the persistent howling of the coyotes did not help.  We all woke up frozen and tired in the morning and hit the road for 76 miles heading to El Centro, California a border town.  On the way to El Centro we descended down a 6% grade for 10 straight miles, it has been described by people as "being in a video game" and "riding a roller coaster", my group averaged around 36 miles per hour for the trip down the mountain, it was one of the scariest things I've ever done on 23 cm of rubber before.  Last night we stayed in a Methodist church in El Centro and cooked a pasta meal as my roomate Pauly likes to call it.  Today was mostly flat covering 82 miles from El Centro to Yuma, AZ (A new State!) directly through the desert, at one point we went 20 miles without evening passing another car, pretty rural!  We covered the first 40 miles in about 2 hours and then the roads turned horrible, we were riding along a frontage route that followed Interstate 8 and it felt like our bikes were coming apart beneath us due to the number of bumps/pot holes. The road took a a toll on my bike shredding my front tire, so I got to spend some time a long the side of the highway in the hot sun waiting for the van to bring me my gear to change it out.  Tonight we had an event at the Buffalo Wild Wings here in Yuma which really turned into us rehydrating and watching the Final 4 basketball games, the first time I had watched a tv in over a week.  Tomorrow we head back out into the desert and heat for 80 miles to Dateland, AZ population 461, should be interesting.  So far its been a great trip though, I never thought I would get in trouble by the border police for being too close to the fence, or climb some of the hills we hit, or even sleep in a tent with 5 random people I just met last week so even though I feel a little homesick right now I wouldn't trade this trip for anything. No Chain!

Never ending climbs.

Lunch time dance party.

The cafe we stopped at in B.F.E. it was like a museum to the 70's

Camping.

Pretty much in Mexico

Lake Morena where we camped.

The desert on day 2 = amazing farmers tan.

Sailors.

How Heidi gets up hills so fast.

Shortly after this photo was taken Border Patrol was not happy with us.

Sometimes its hard to find shade for lunch breaks when youre in the middle of the desert

First new state! Welcome to Arizona.

Saw more dune buggies on day 3 then cars.