April 26 -- Wickenburg AZ to Cottonwood AZ

It's done. I made it.

I can now fess up -- I've had a pit in my stomach about this day's climbing since before I signed up for the ride. I don't know if there are longer individual climbs, but this day has 50% more than the next highest day's climbing. Don't forget -- I trained in Florida -- the biggest hill is a highway overpass. And, to exacerbate things, there is a lot of climbing at altitude -- I've done some climbing in Philly in the past, but that is at sea level. It's different at 7,000 feet.

At breakfast today I told Bill Reenstra that I'd better do today alone -- quite frankly, I was not sure how I would make out, whether I would need a lift (probably not) or whether it would take me forever (good chance). As it turned out, I made excellent time up the first big climb, passing several people in the process. On the second and third climbs I held my own, but was pretty slow. There are clearly better climbers (younger and/or stronger/experienced on hills) and some of them, if they were really pushing it, could burn up the pavement. From the looks of things Bill and I kept pretty much the same pace over the day as well, judging by when we saw each other at the SAG stops.

However, on this kind of trip, there is no prize for first place. We have only done 4 days and have 27 more to do (plus one rest day). It's about endurance. Survival.

We expended a lot of effort today, with the climbing. I'm pleased and relieved that I can hold my own. I was worried. Bill mentioned that a friend of his has a saying (about biking) -- climbing makes you strong and headwinds make you mean -- I guess I got the mean part down with Florida headwinds and orneryness (that's a word?) kept me going.

SAG stops -- no one knew what it stood for, but I just looked it up -- Support And Gear -- they have quite an interesting routine:

1) take gloves off
2) sign in
3) wash hands (they provide a squirt bottle of gel and wipes)

... then, touch food and/or water. Makes sense -- if you have something, or picked up something from the road -- don't share it !

Back to today's ride.

The route -- from Wickenburg, 89 north to Prescott and then 89a to Cottonwood. They devised a route within Prescott through a campus to get us away from a nasty intersection, but that's basically it.

The climbs -- Total climbing for the day is over 11,000 feet. Wickenburg is at about 2000 ft then we climb gradually for the first 20 miles to 3900 feet then switchback steep to 5000 feet. We then descend to 3900 feet again and climb to around 6000 feet, then down and up for about 10 miles as we wind our way around the tops of hills -- we end up accumulating a lot of climbing in this stretch, and all above 5000 feet. We then have a 15 mile mostly flat section, then climb, switchback, to 7,159 from 5,000. Then we descend all the way to about 3000 feet.

Stats: -- 104 miles; 9:15 elapsed time (including about 45 minutes for the burgers, see below); 7:33 rolling time.

The scenery is wonderful. It's arid of course, but pines and other mostly green, in this high desert region in and out of the Prescott National Forest. This is area that you would miss if you travelled the Interstate.

The descent from 7,159 to 3,000 is taken in two stages (optional). The first stage is fairly tight switchbacks, rough road (I was concerned about my wheels and my hands were going numb), until you get to 5000 feet at Jerome. Jerome is a very pretty touristy town with and excellent hamburger joint -- and so we all stopped there -- arriving over the course of an hour. I don't know if everyone stopped, but we sure filled the place. The burgers were excellent and went with the view -- ever had a haunted burger ? -- and of course that also gave Barb a chance to get from the last SAG stop to the motel so that our gear was awaiting us .... well, sort of ... three of us were the first to arrive and we had the honor of unloading the trailer. Perhaps we should have had desert with our burgers ? Everyone pitches in.

The second stage of the descent was WONDERFUL ! -- smooth pavement, some traffic ... ahem ... but of course we were travelling 35-40 mph in a 35 zone, and naturally we were too slow for some people, so they passed us on that two lane road.

While we were eating, we were getting cold. The temperature was dropping and we were seated in a semi-outside location. So -- we put our jackets on for the descent, but it was much warmer at the lower elevation of Cottoonwood.

Getting in by 4pm, I then proceeded to do the other chore of the day -- laundry. Per instructions, I brought four changes of biking clothes. I grabbed the one washer first ... and then the one dryer. If we get some cooler days, and I expect that we will, the gear can take two days wear. This will be part of the routine, however.

Anything else of note ? -- looks like it will be cooler tomorrow, but that's part of the package. I would have gone out today without the jacket, which most of the day rode in my pocket, but was valuable for about 3 miles of descending. Bill has an extra large seat pouch which works great for him -- it's large enough to stuff clothing into. Several people have gear-sized pouches but the majority have small wedgies -- mine is in between.

That's it for today, I think. Perhaps I'll go out and get a snack ...

g'night.