Bicycle Journey Progress

The journey begins on July 29th and ends on September 11th, 2023

Ride Progress: ABOUT TO START!
Daily summaries:
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quarta-feira, 20 de junho de 2012

Day 63 – 06/04/2012 – Ludlow, CA - Part 2

See the beginning of this day here.



PART 2

From that point on we rode ten more miles, this time in a flat terrain, and reached the point where Route 66 passed below interstate 40. There we found a hidden place that didn’t even appear in the GPS called Oasis. Besides being a gas station they also had a convenience store and several fountains with trees planted all over the place which made it look like a real Oasis. By this time we had completed about 40 miles already, and the sun was already high in the sky. It was getting warm, so we parked our bicycles under a shade to have coffee and eat a few sandwiches we had in our luggage.


After resting we resumed our ride. We passed another small nearly ghost town called Essex, but one more time there was nothing for us there. As we moved forward the winds started to pick up speed and slow us down, and the temperature started to rise quickly. Forty more miles passed this way. As we moved towards the next city, Amboy, I started to feel dizzy. The sun was very intense and the winds were blowing so warm it would probably be better to have no winds whatsoever. As we progressed I used pretty much all the water I had left. Our remaining water had reached a very high temperature under the intense sunlight, so drinking water was also not a pleasant experience. The asphalt was all cracked, it was clear that road had received no maintenance for a very long time.


We had to climb up a long hill, about four miles long. The road was a straight line cutting through rocky mountains that were burning under the intense hear. At this point I started asked myself what was I doing there. There was not a single tree, no a high bushes, no constructions, no place to hide from the sun. If I were hit by a heat stroke I would certainly be in serious trouble.


This way we kept moving along. It was about 5 miles before Amboy I felt like I was going to faint. My heart beat accelerated and I started to feel dizzier to the point I could not ride safely. On the horizon I could see the city, but I was seriously questioning my ability to get there. My uncle was in better condition than I was and, besides the high temperatures, was not feeling the effects so badly. I had tough decision to make: drink the remaining water or use it to cool down. My thirst was intense, but since fainting was my biggest risk I decided to make my shirt wet and threw the rest over my head. That helped me recover somewhat and, holding tightly to the handlebar I made a final effort to get to Amboy.


When we arrived we noticed the only business active in town was a place called Roy’s Café. We parked our bicycles and got in. For our amazement the place had air conditioned and had ice cold water and soda for sale. We sat down to recover and have some water and then asked for food. Unfortunately they had no working kitchen. We had some coffee and then settled down on a table to wait the temperature drop. During that time we wrote some daily summaries, prepared some videos for the website and waited the time to pass. 

Farrell Hastings, the owner of the coffee shop was very friendly and let us stayed there the whole afternoon. He also let us plug our electric pan and warm up the packages of food we had with us. We stayed there from 1:00pm until 8:00pm. After eating we washed the dirty plates and silverware in the restroom, then packed and prepared to complete our ride to Ludlow.

We had 28 more miles to go, and were planning to complete that course in 3 hours at most. Unfortunately, the winds had something else in mind for us that evening.


To be continued...