Day Eight
Today I covered 57 miles from Morristown, Arizona to North Tempe. Last night, I slept terribly. My right leg hurt. A lot. My IT band was tight as a piano wire and all the muscles around it were achy. I did a great job of fully hydrating last night and it was my first night in my bivy bag. Crawling out of that caterpillar cocoon to pee four times is the end of the bivy. I'm shipping it home.
Then this morning, a strange thing happened. I packed up and rolled out in record time. Smooth pavement? Tailwind? Downhill? Maybe all or some of those factors, but regardless of why, I started riding stronger than any day so far, holding 16-22 miles per hour at 108 heart beats per minute. Huh?
I had breakfast at about 22 miles out. I wasn't even hungry but it was time for fuel. I wolfed the food down and kept riding at strength all day. I had time to make more videos, with no stress about getting anywhere on time. Because, suddenly, I'm fast. Will it last? Did I find my inner animal? Next week’s mountains will be the test.
The Phoenix area is huge. I turned off US 60 at Peoria, NW of Phoenix proper. The arterial streets here are laid out in a perfect NSEW grid. I crossed eastbound north of the city and caught a bike trail that follows the Arizona Canal, an engineered river carrying irrigation water across the valley. Very clean riding.
I've spoken with so many people who left the cloudy, rainy, snowy north. This migration cuts across all income brackets. In rural areas, it is obvious that money is tight and people are counting dollars carefully. In the city, I rode past golf courses, swanky shopping malls and palatial houses. But they all get what they most crave: sun. The sun is free. The most conspicuous of consumption seems to be of water. Near Salome, I watched an older guy literally raking his gravel front yard, as if he had just mown it. People out there are barely scraping by. In the city, there are legions of landscapers caring for thousands of acres of perfectly manicured lawns. There is a simple solution to the Southwest's water scarcity. Love gravel. There needs to be a different status symbol than green landscapes in the desert.
After saying all that, I'm a little embarrassed to say I rented a car to get around this massive metropolis tomorrow. But I have errands to run and this city is so spread out. I don't want to bike 40 miles on my rest day to get them done. Will you forgive me if I buy some carbon offsets? I'll do that.
I’d love to hear from you. Donate to the ride and send along your words of encouragement and tell me why getting kids outside matters to you.
