Day 3 - Desert, Hills and Food

Today's highlights include - a cooler day (whew!), contact with the Arizona State Patrol, more desert riding, a couple of good hills and the Mountain Bike Racer Dude.

We started off in much cooler temps this morning, which was much appreciated.  We hopped on the Interstate and ran into our first crisis of the day when an Arizona State Patrolman did not want bikes to be on his freeway in a construction zone.  It didn't help matters out when John Downham, our young English rider, went down and slid on some freshly laid tar/oil.  Our bent rider, Bruce Boehm was issued a citation for riding on the wrong side of a cone - but the citation was only a warning and the officer actually was interested in hearing about the HPV races in Battle Mountain.  Everything worked out eventually and we carried on down the road.

 

John Downham  has a bruised hip from sliding in some tar/oil on the freeway

It didn't start getting warmer until we had covered 80 miles, at the lunch stop.  Then the ice socks came out, but it was still 10 degrees cooler than yesterday.  The big climb of the day was Yarnell Grade, about 2 hours NW of Phoenix.  Up we went - 1,500' with a steady 5-7% grade

Rob on Yarnell Grade - note the ice sock

 

After Yarnell Grade, I found Clay Griffin at the next rest stop, just getting ready to go. We rode together for the last 25 miles, up 1,500' more feet to the Prescott forest (very nice) and some cooler temperatures. 

Clay Griffin from South Carolina - my roomie

 

This is were we met the Mountain Bike Racer dude.  He was sitting on his bike when we went by one of the hairpin turns on the Prescott hill.  When he found out we were riding across the country, he followed us and rode along.  We never got his name, but he had raced in a big mountain bike race last weekend, done well.   He has won this race 2x as a professional racer with Cannondale.  After some more conversation he told us that Rosa's was the best place in Prescott for carbs (Italian).  This turned out to be a great tip as six of us took a cab downtown and had a great meal at a really nice restaurant..

 

I would write some more but am falling asleep.  Last picture is of Alan, who really struggled the first day, but has been getting stronger (and smiling more) every day since then.  In the background is Jackie - our only woman rider.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is 11,000' of climbing as we finish our desert and desert mountain sections, finishing by climbing the 3,000' Mogollian Rim to the high desert plain.  The first 90 miles of the 154 mile day will have all the hard work, after that it is a steady downhill, with a hoped for strong tailwind, to Winslow.