Pretty, Dam, Big

Day 37, Stage 25 - Las Vegas to Kingman 108 miles in 12hrs 35 mins (incl 1 puncture and one very long lunch)
Total distance - 2,088 miles
The toughest day in the saddle so far. If the distance & time stats aren't bad enough then here's a few more; total climbing ~4,500ft, temp above 95 for most of the day, and worst of all a 20mph near direct headwind for about 60 miles.

I'd set my alarm for 5.30 with the plan to get as far down the road before it really warmed up and ahead of the headwind that was forecast to strengthen through the day. So at 7am I pushed the bike out the front doors of the New York New York hotel I'd been staying at and found it was already warm. This was going to be a tough day. Still, if all went well then I figured I could be finished just after 3pm. However, things didn't start well though as the front tyre was flat before I'd got out of Vegas (a city I'd definitely go back to). Having fixed this I continued on through Boulder City where I stocked up on another 4 inner tubes and the cyclocomputer went through 2,000 miles without me realizing. The road then wound down to the site of today's pic., the Hoover Dam. As impressive and iconic a structure it is, it was actually the incomplete new freeway bridge with it's vast unconnected arch suspended in mid air that blew me away (sorry, pics didn't turn out).

The climb out from the dam was a nervous, shoulder-less slog but once up I got my first taste of the views of the endless desert ridges and canyons in this part of the world. While the forests of giant redwoods made me feel like a three year old, this place made me fell like an insignificant ant, and one that was being scorched under a magnifying glass as it was near 35C by then.

50 miles in the road dropped into a sprawling plateau, heading straight into the strengthening, warming wind and my long, hot, painfully-slow grind of an afternoon-going-on-evening began and continued til just after sunset when I gratefully coasted down from Coyote Pass into Kingman.

Lots more I'd like to say about today but, sorry, I really must sleep, I'm afraid. Planning another century for tomorrow, but should hopefully have a tailwind to push me up the further 4,000ft of climbing.

Totally Exhausted.

Mother's Day pic

Mother's Day

Day 36 - another rest day in Vegas
Does a picture need to say a thousand words when a handful will do? And for those of you who don't know, that actually is my mum in today's pic :)

Setting out for a four day, or hopefully three day, leg down to the Grand Canyon a very early start tomorrow in an attempt to get out the city and as far down route to the Grand Canyon before it hits 100F again.

Oops, IT issue so pic to follow

There's no right angles in nature...

...nor are there any in a Vegas casino it would seem.

Day 35 - ...another rest day, but just done the 10 mile trip back from
the bike shop
Total distance - 1,981 miles

Today was another day with the thermometers into three figures leading the crowds, including myself, into the depths of the immense air conditioned warrens of the casino complexes. As vastly impressive as these places are, while strolling through them I have been asking myself just how many people are actually there cause they want to be and how many are looking for a way out? I had heard that these places are deliberately designed to keep you in them and I've got to say I'm massively impressed by the effort and design that has been put into keeping you in them as I thought I had a fairly reasonable sense of direction, but not in these places I don't it would seem. My theory is it's all about having no right angles in the floor plans, everything is either sweeping curves or 120-135 degree turns. As enormously effective as it is, though, I'm certain there's a thing or two (or more like two million), that the casino guys could learn from the chaps at the Garmin GPS.

Anyway, off out for dinner and this place is fairly near the top of the list of options. You've just gotta love the honesty of this town - it may not be good for you but boy is it fun.

We're gonna need a bigger boattle

Day 34 - Rest Day
...but still 10 miles in 50 mins
Total distance -1,971 miles
Here on the Vegas strip is obviously the wrong side of town to be on if you're looking for a bike shop as I ended up about 10 miles away in the sweltering heat today trying to find the nearest one for another overhaul of my steed. It's been doing an really admirable job given it's a mountain bike and so was never designed for a fully-laden tour in the desert, but I've been sensing that it's been struggling as of late in the heat. Just for the record, the list of breakages/repairs etc so far (incl. this weekend's work) are;

Front wheel - major adjustment and regreasing of hub three separate
times. 1 broken spoke (replaced at Coos Bay)
Rear wheel - 7 broken spokes necessitating 2 full bike shop rebuilds,
one partial shop rebuild and 2 attempted rebuilds by myself
1 broken chain (fixed in Victorville)
1 snapped clamp for rear pannier (thankfully I had spares)
Brake pads - front needing changed within next coulple of hundred miles.
Punctures - at least six, I think. I can't quite remember.

Which brings me onto my main point for today and today's title: water bottles. While at the shop I made the joyous discovery of finding they sold insulated Camelbak water bottles which the mechanics were raving about. I purchased three (and might well get another couple tomorrow)
as the aluminium Sigg bottles I have, as great as they are, were very rapidly overheating over the past few day's stages. Another two bottles would give me a carrying capacity of some 9 litres or liquid (16 pints). I know sounds a ridiculous amount but, as an example, here's a list of my liquid consumption on Wednesday (it's the total below that's the interesting point rather than the details);

Before departing - 0.5 litres water, 0.5 litres sprite/mountain dew
Up to stop at 42 miles - 1.5 litres water
At 42 mile stop - 1 litre strawberry Nesquik, 1 litre water
Mile 42 to Baker (mile 66) - 1 litre Sprite, 2 litres water
At Baker - 1.5 litres Fanta
Baker to 92 mile water stop - 2 litres of horribly warm water, 1 can Sunkist
92 mile stop - 2 litres water
92 miles to stage end - 2 litres water
Dinner/motel room - 1 beer, 1 strawberry milkshake, 1 orange juice (totalling ~ 1.5 litres), 1 litre water

All told a staggering 18 litres, 32 pints, or 4 gallons of liquid - and that was with me having been desparately thirsty for about an hour of the day. Of this probably less than a litre left me by the, err, shall we 'traditional' manner. Hence the reason that when I put the maillot jaune on again yesterday morning I practically needed to crack it it was that encrusted in salts. So, as you can see, 9 litres quickly becomes not such a silly amout.

Well, I'm signing off for the day cause I need a drink.

Vegas Baby!

Day 33, Stage 24 - Primm Valley to Las Vegas
42 miles in 3hrs 20mins (incl. two punctures)
Total Distance - 1,961 miles
After the excersions of the past two monster days, particularly last night's nightmarish ending, I was grateful for today's straightforward and very short run into the glorious insanity that is Las Vegas.

The day started with me pushing the bike out through the gaming floor of the casino I'd been staying which drew a number of puzzled looks from other guests, and some of the staff. Once I got out I quickly saw the front tyre was almost flat. Having changed the tube I then got about half a mile down the road before the 'fixed' tyre was empty once again. This time I fixed it properly and quickly got about 30 forgetable miles down the road in sweltering heat before being 'informed' by a perfectly reasonable highway patrol man that there was an alternate road I should be taking. I took his 'advice' and trundled straight down into the beating heart of the incredible madness that is this city in a sea of sand.

F.E.A.R.

Day 32, Stage 23 - Barstow to 100 yards into Nevada
118 miles in 10hrs - (incl. an awful lot of water stops)
Total Distance - 1,919 miles
After the almost disrespectful way I sped through the desert yesterday, today, it was payback as it gave me a very humbling but strangely beautiful lesson as to just how harsh an environment this can be and that I should, perhaps, treat it with a bit more respect.

I awoke at 7.30 feeling refreshed despite yesterday's mammoth 150 mile day. It was just under 160 miles to Vegas but to stop me getting any ideas of trying to do it in one very long stint (ideas which I definitely had) I deliberately waited until 9.50 before setting out under a cloudless sky, wearing my maillot jaune for the first time. To be honest, I'm generally not to keen on wearing it as I think it's somewhat insulting to the famous jersey for it to be seen on someone of my lowly cycling prowess. Today, though, it was all about wearing it to be seen as I would be venturing onto the interstate for the first time and be on it for most of the day.

I joined it, then quickly left it as the signs sent me onto the side road through Yermo where I planned to stop for breakfast after 13 miles. But after a while I looked down the straight road a few miles and saw no sign of the town. I'd gone 15 miles and I then realised that the tiny collection of houses and one diner I'd passed by had been Yermo. A very smalltown!

So, I continued down the quiet sideroad for a further 10 miles during which the surface rapidly deteriorated into an unridable state so bad that I was grateful to rejoin the speeding trucks on the interstate. Here I rode along happily in the shoulder lane actually enjoying watching the distorted reflections of the vast landscape in the chromed beasts passing by.

One consequence of riding along in the shoulder lane meant there was a little 'game' I was required to play. I'm calling it 'Reptile or Rubber' and the rules are simple. Is the long thin thing ahead on the road just another one of the thousands of strips of tyre that littered the shoulder, or is it a snake sunning itself on the tarmac ready to strike out at a passing cyclist's legs? Thankfully no snakes today but there were a couple of recently dead ones yesterday to add to the two live ones I saw on the way down the coast (though it was only really one and a half live ones thanks to my rear wheel - oops).

This game kept me 'amused' all the way through the first 66 miles into the town of Baker. I got there a little over 4 hours since I'd set off and by then, the payback from yesterday had started. It. Was. Hot. The gigantic thermometer in the town was reading 91F and in the time it took me to finish off another Subway and fix a random puncture it was up to 94F. Disconcertingly, though, it had the potential to go up to 139F. Worrying.

While fixing the tyre a local county policeman wandered over. It turned out he was a cyclist himself and was intrigued and enthusiastic to hear about my the trip. He gave me some helpful advice about the route ahead and wished me well on the trip. While I wasn't at all surprised by his politeness almost everyone I spoke to today asked me if or how often I'd been stopped by the highway patrol for cycling on along the interstate. This is particularly worrying given I was definitely allowed to be on it at those parts (I have checked) but it suggested most folk weren't expecting bikes on the road.

The road out from Baker gave me my first real taste of the the legendary seemingly endless straights that you get in this part of the world. This one was actually only 12 miles, but it also went up some 2,300 feet so as I was only going at 7mph in the searing heat it made for a physically, but more so mentally tough hour and three quarters. The road then took a long sweeping 30 degree turn, and then went up another 900 feet over the next 6 miles. All told it had taken me almost three hours to climb those 18 miles. I was out of water and had been for the past half hour so. My maillot jaune now had a thick frosted coating of sweat salt on it and I had found myself briefly wondering what the moisture content of a passing butterfly was. I was thirsty so I was relieved to see a grand 'Mart on the Hill' sign above the turn-off at the summit. I turned off and climbed the ramp to see a deralict shell of a building. Fortunately, from the summit I could see the rest area (with water) I had already known was about six miles on. So I set off down the road which, for the next mile or
so, was crawling with probably hundreds of thousands of tiny
grasshoppers which made for a truely bizarre ride down a frantically hopping highway.

I reached the water point then quickly left 7kg heavier (five liters in various bottles and two in me). It was 6.20 by now and I was very aware that I only had about 1hr 40mins daylight to cover the 24 miles to the Nevada state border and the town of Primm, my planned destination for the night. The views along the next 9 miles and 1,000ft of climbing up to Mountain Pass were stunning but the ticking clock meant I only had time to take this quick shot. The summit of the pass (4,700ft) came at 7.20 by which time the sun was disappearing behind the peaks and I was beginning to feel a touch nervous about riding the next 15 miles in the fading light. Still, I knew it was a monster downhill off the peak so expected a very fast ride down.

Then, it all went a bit wrong. Actually very, very wrong. I'd anxiously taken notice of the roadworks sign on the climb up the pass and then I was faced with what I'd feared, it was a bright orange sign emblazoned with 'No Shoulder'. I was about to become a highly unwilling player in a new game. But this was one the truck drivers were going to play called 'Dodge the cyclist. The what? Ah, I didn't see him - oops'. To make it worse, even the road workers obviously don't expect cyclists on this part of the interstate as there wasn't a single sign warning for bikes and one thing I've learnt is the Americans will put up a road sign for almost anything (my personal favourite so far has been the 'Kayak Crossing' one in Monterey - yeah, go figure). I paused very briefly to switch on my lights and as the three lanes merged to two I felt the cold embrace of fear on me. This made the cliffs in northern Oregon feel like a minor inconvenience.

The first mile or so was the worst filled with repeated nervous glances over my shoulder to see what was trundling out of the sun. However, these glances sometimes resulted in me drifting a small, but significant amount further out into the lane. So, I calmly put my headphones back in and deceided I was only going to look forward. After all, what could I really do if I was to see 40 tons of steel and diesel on a collision course with me? The road was narrow so there was nowhere else to go. And did I really want my last thought to be knowing I was about to become part of the tarmac? If it was going to happen then, so be it. The fear was still very much there, but there was now a serenity about it. The one thing I could definitely do, though was pedal, hard. This would have the dual benefit of decreasing the traffic's closing speed on me, along with, obviously, meaning I'd spend less time in the 'kill zone'. I've never pedalled harder. In fact I'd be amazed if anyone has every made a more desparate rush for the state line as I was making as I tried to get as close to the 55mph speed limit as I could. The hill was mercifully steep meaning I spent long stints above 40mph feeling the ground rumble to the, thankfully, passing engines.

The shoulder lane finally reappeared some 12.5 miles and fractionally
over 20 mins later.

I was safe ...

...but it's 2.45am and I still can't sleep

Tracks in the sand

Day 31, Stage 22 - Santa Monica to Barstow
150 miles in 11hrs 45mins
Total Distance - 1,801 miles
Yeah, I felt good this morning. Although things actually started considerably earlier than I'd planned as I woke at 3.58am.....unable to get back to sleep. Still, I had planned an early rise anyway to try and beat the rush hour traffic on the 25 mile ride out through the city. Priority number one this morning was riding the bike down the near-deserted Santa Monica beach for the traditional dipping the wheels in the Pacific (see pic). As I said on the video clip I took at the time 'One bike. One ocean. Only 3000 miles to the next one - 6am and I was good to go.'

Then came the next symbolic move of the day, switching my glass lenses from orange to black ready for the desert glare. I was psyched, but strangely calm and had a feeling there was potentially a special cycling day in me for today.

The first few miles were a stop-go nightmare through the grid streets of the city on dreadful roads before I turned up one of the glens to take me through 'The Hills' over into northern LA. There were a number of passes through over the ridge to the north side of the city and while I chose the shortest, I reckon I also must have chosen the highest - a 1,300ft climb past Bel Air golf course that put Big Sur to shame. It was fun though and there's an awful lot of spectacular looking houses up there. A quick descent along Mullholland Drive took me down into a further 10 miles of mind numbing traffic light-filled grids before the GPS went on a mission to p me off that even by it's high standards of unreliability was epic. It's very, very lucky to still be in one piece. However, I finally found a way out the city (with the emphasis on I), and the air noticeably cleared from the smog of the city. Looking back over the city of LA I have to say I really kind of liked it as a place but definitely a case of 'worth seeing but not worth going to see.'

The road continued in undulating climbs for the next 40 miles through Santa Clarita and along the dead quiet Soledad Canyon, complete with the most middle-of-nowhere shop I've seen for a long time from which I was compelled to buy something out of pity. All the climbing (approx 4,500ft), traffic and gps issues (and another 12" of sub) had made for a slow start and it took me just over 6hrs to do those first 60 miles taking me to Munro height of 3,000ft. Still it had been a great morning as the rebuilt wheel was holding up, I had a new set of headphones which were working great and, best of all, my new cycling shorts were hugely comfy (forgot to mention I'd been exposing my rear to who knows how many folk in the past however long having not realized I'd worn through one of my other pairs). This was also my first taste of the desert and my initial thoughts are I love it; warm, clear, quiet and stunning scenery. Just as well I like it as I'm going to be in it for the next month!

I really wasn't sure where I was heading to for this evening but had hoped to post another century to get me a third of the 310 miles to Vegas. I had previously planned this leg as a four day stint, but had recently, tentatively been thinking I might, just maybe, be able to do in three. Therefore, I was tentatively aiming for Victorville, 110 miles from Santa Monica.

Now the weather forecast had been for a strong westerly today though there had been precious little sign of it in those first 60 miles. But I then got out onto the plateau, turned east and found the wind. With the road going almost straight, due east and flat all the way into Victorville, I knew it would be a quick afternoon. Thinking a new hour record for the trip could be on the cards I set off with a vengance and, by the end of the hour through miles of Joshua trees and alongside the incredibly wasteful construction that is the California aqueduct, I'd posted 19.2 miles, easily beating my previous best of the trip of 16.9 on Saturday. Pleased, yes but if I'm honest I was a bit disappointed at missing the 20 mile mark. Still, it would give me a beatable target for later stages in the trip.

I kept pedalling ... and the road got even flatter and better. I got faster, much, much faster. 4.1 miles in 10 mins, 13.3 in 30 mins... and faster... , 20 miles in 43.5 mins. Then, the amusing reality dawned on me, I was going so fast I was going to run out of open road before the hour was up. And so it proved as I raced into the lights and traffic of Victorville. Despite this, I ended up with a 26.6 mile hour - beating, by some margin, my lifetime best of 23 miles. I stopped in the sun and could practically taste the endorphins pouring through my veins. Though I had 112 miles chalked up, I was on such a high there was no way I could stop for the day. And besides, it was far too good a wind to waste. So, I set off in the general direction of Barstow.

In my excitement, though, after a mile I made a cycling schoolboy error of trying to get the chain into big chainring, big sprocket, chewing the chain. An oily 25 mins later it was up and running again, less a link out the chain.

My route then quickly joined the iconic Route 66 for the first time and I danced on the pedals out the saddle pointing with almost manic joy at the Route 66 icons emblazened on the tarmac. My shadow was growing long as I cruised between the lowering sun in the west and the risen moon in the east before the road turned again to let the wind ease me along the final few miles into Barstow where I gratefully pulled into a motel, and the cyclocomputer rolled over to show 150.4 very memorable miles.

Into the firing line

Day 30 - Recovery day
Despite a perfectly relaxing day today, with a massage that was just the right side of painful and so much food that was just the wrong side, I've spent the day growing increasingly on edge about heading off into the desert tomorrow - point-blank into the firing line of the sun.

Nervous...

LAzy days

Day 29 - Rest day
A surprisingly busy day today what with finding a bike shop to rebuild the wheels, buy a new phone charger and stock up on freeze-dried food for my upcoming stint through the desert to Vegas (for which it's forecast to be uncomfortably warm). As a result I've managed to get a good bit of sightseeing in.

This city really is so; false, image-obsessed, body beatiful, surgically enhanced, fake tanned and fake whatever else...

...it's quite simply magnificent.