Bicycle Journey Progress

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

Ride Progress: ABOUT TO START!
Daily summaries:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75

sexta-feira, 1 de junho de 2012

Ready to ride thw whole night

Now temperatures lowered to 39 celsius and we are about to leave towards Needles, CA.

We will need to ride the whole night so we are also taking some energy drinks with us.

It sucks but there is no other way.




Day 49 – 05/21/2012 – Flagstaff, AZ

This day we had in mind going to Williams, AZ. But the strong winds, high temperatures and dry air ended up changing our plans.

As soon as we left Holbrook we entered the I-40 Service Road. The hot sun started affecting us immediately, and we were not able to move too fast. The winds were against us as well, so every mile was hard and took a long time to cover. About seventeen miles we entered a rest area. There my uncle discovered a flat tire, so we took the time to fix it.


We knew there was a gas station a few miles down the road, so we didn’t stop in the rest area for too long. Unfortunately, as soon as we left the rest area my uncle’s front tire was flat again. This time we had no shade, so we had to fix it under the burning sun.


Once we arrived in the gas station we bought a coffee and took a few minutes to call Brazil. There was no way to place our bikes inside the store so we had our coffees and rested outside, under the shade of a small tree.


For the next few hours we kept moving forward slower than we would like. We then saw a large twister on the side of the road sucking up dirt. We stopped and caught it on video. Thankfully It was not coming in our direction, so we were able to observe it without trouble.


The rest of the way was fairly uneventful. When we arrived in Flagstaff it was almost twilight time. We were so tired of riding against the wind that we decided to stay there for the night, and the take the scenic route to the Grand Canyon from there instead of going to Williams. We went to Walmart to buy food and then headed to a cheap hotel nearby.



Day 48 – 05/20/2012 – Winslow, AZ

Due to the large amount of miles covered in the previous days we decided to make take it easy this day and ride just about forty miles to a nearby city called Winslow. We got out of the hotel late and, as before hitting the road, we stopped by a gas station to get more water and a few energy bars.

On our way out of the city we saw many petrified wood logs decorating all kinds of stores and gas stations. Clearly, petrified wood was common in that area and we wanted to find some. They had a few to sell on local stores, but we wanted to collect our own.


The day was very hot and dry. Moving forward was hard but bearable. We entered I-40 shoulder space, but it was all scrapped with wholes and bumps all over. We rode about 10 miles very slowly under those conditions.


After about seven miles riding in the interstate we saw a piece of petrified wood on the side of the road and decided to stop and look for more. As it turns out we found many little pieces of petrified wood in that area. We spent about fifty minutes there under the hot sun looking for petrified wood and other uncommon stones, and then decided to take some with us.


Again we were riding slowly in the bumpy shoulders of the interstate and then saw the entrance to the Old Highway 66. We decided to get out of the interstate and ride in the small highway instead.
After about fifteen miles we stopped and had some chocolate milk to recover from the hot sun. We also took chocolate milk and two donuts with us.


After about twenty five miles we stopped under a bridge to eat our donuts and drink the milk, and then proceeded to Winslow. We quickly found a Walmart where my uncle changed his bicycle seat by a better one, then then headed to a hotel.


Since we arrived early we had time to rest, but the Wi-Fi connection didn’t work so no site updates that day. We had dinner and prepared to sleep early due to the fact we had a long haul in mind for the next day.


Not possible to proceed right now

We attempted to move forward on the road but today temperatures were too high. We rode from Las Vegas to Henderson, and from there towards Boulder City. Before arriving there we stopped below a bridge to eat and rest (see previous post) and then attempted to move forward.

During our lunch the temperatures rose tremendously. Our first five miles into the desert were downhill, but the next 5 were going slightly up. We had to stop several times to drink water, but our water was very warm already. Our bodies started to heat up too much so I picked an underwear (clean of course haha), soaked with water and placed in my head below the helmet.

However I was not feeling good and started to get dizzy. The next city was still about 30 miles ahead and we had about one gallon of water total, which I honestly didn't think would be enough with these temperatures.

So we decided to head back. It's frustrating having to turn around and ride 10 miles backwards and uphill, but we had to. It was just too risky to move forward. We then rested under a bridge for a few minutes then headed to a nearby casino.

We are here now in the casino resting in the AC. It's a shame these places smell so badly from the people smoking, otherwise it would be perfect to relax and wait the sun go down.

Our plan is to stay here about six hours and wait for twilight. Once the sun started to set we will return to the road and finish up the course we had planned for today!

I'll keep you posted on what happens next from the smartphone, so stay tuned!


First meal of the day

We stopped under a bridge to eat part of our sandwich before enntering Highway 95 towards Neeedles, CA.

This is by far the hottest day we had.this entire trip!





Leaving back towards Route 66

Today will be a HOT day in the desert so we are leaving early! Hopefully we'll get there fine we'll also take LOTS of water with us.