Playing dodgem on the Interstate

Another day spent mostly on I-40 and another day playing dodgem on the shoulders. Riding the interstate sounded pretty awful to me when I first heard about it. I had visions of Rt 95 or 80 in the east and I cannot imagine being on either of those on a bike. I-40 in Arizona and so far into New Mexico is the only way to go-and I do mean only, there are no other roads to carry you through these vast open high desert spaces. They have wide shoulders, the scenery is lovely and the traffic, while it does rumble along is not near the heavy concentration we have on the eastern interstates. There is one issue however and that's where the dodgem comes in. The shoulders are littered with debris from blown out truck tires. What you see as a driver are the big hunks of tire casing-what we see from the bike is single bits of junk that goes into that tire in addition to the tire itself. In addition there are all the other things that get tossed to the side: lots of glass, discarded monkey wrenches, shoes, dead animals (aka road kill). It's easy to see and avoid the big stuff but all the little bits and pieces, the strips of rubber, and the most evil of all, the little hunks and pieces of wire that blew out with the tire. These are the things that get into our tires and work their way through to the tube until we feel the wobble and look down (or back) to see the flat tire on the bike-arggghhhh. And so we weave our way down the highway trying to make speed or climb a hill and all the while keeping an eye on the road just beyond the tire and turning and twisting our way through the maze. Unfortunately you can't see it all. One guy I talked to tonight has now had 6 flats, not fun. I had my second today and just as we were in the home stretch. I dug out out 4 little wires to find the evil culprit...Fortunately it was the front this time-I can change that in a very few minutes and without all the greasy hands that the rear wheel causes. Aside from that it was really a pretty good day. Contrary to my earlier thought Arizona does allow clouds in the skies and the last couple of days we have had lots and lots of big white puffy clouds to complement the high desert landscape. The terrain today had a bit of a roll at times but was basically smooth and other than the fact that it was 87 miles fairly easy. We had a few moments of head wind and cross winds but nothing like yesterday. From our last SAG at the 60 mile mark we picked up a nice tail wind and Tom suddenly turned into the horse who smells the barn. We did the next 25 miles or so (except for a brief stop when I changed my tire) at speeds of 20/23 mph-fun way to get to the hotel.

I-40 has basically replaced the old 66 and we stopped for a cheeseburger at the 44 mile point at a place just off the interstate but is a survivor of the old road. We go in with our bike togs and of course draw a few stares. Eventually an elderly (I do realize I need to use that word carefully) Native American came over to ask where we were going - "Boston huh. That's quite a distance from here." And where did you start - "Los Angeles...bet you haven't seen much rain" And so on until he wished us luck and reminded us to be careful out there with all those trucks. And meeting folks like that and those little conversations is part of what makes this ride so much fun. And at mile 70 we crossed into New Mexico, our third state on this journey. We did our little ritual with the Pacific sand at the state line sign so hopefully the biking deities will continue to smile on us.

And the photos...That's Tom posing at the state line and sprinkling the sand at the base..note how the jersey picks up the chilis on the sign...And a scene from the road-those big puffy clouds I was talking about. And finally a photo for Jacob...I probably won't see any alligators in the desert but I did see this T-Rex this morning-looks like he is trying to bite my head off.

Tomorrow we head for Grants-and it's a mere 68 miles so we are getting a later start and will get an extra hour of sleep-and believe me we can use it...night all.