(Sat, 3/1/25; 25 miles, 2133 feet of climb)
I am back in the mountains! I’ve enjoyed the nine days of mostly flat desert riding, including the last four days on bike paths in the Phoenix metro area.
But there is something epic about riding in the mountains. So far I am very glad that I did not diverge from the ACA maps and go south through Tucson to avoid the hills.
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The day started at Bob & Mary Michel’s house with yet another amazing breakfast of bacon, eggs, potatoes, juice, and coffee. Mary reports that when she got up early to start cooking breakfast, apparently something that doesn’t happen all that often, Bob said “What are you DOING?”
Mary told him, “I want to get a five-star review on Yelp.” She had seen the great breakfasts served by Aunt Marjory and Lynn & Teri Trask on my Facebook page, and didn’t want to lose to the competition.
Since I am in the presence of the world’s greatest detective (you should see how Mary tracks down our high school classmates for reunion invites), I need to make a public confession before it hits the news.
I cheated today.
On the entire 3300 miles of the Southern Tier Bike Route, from San Diego to St. Augustine, there is ONE SEGMENT that I just couldn’t wrap my head around. I was now faced with that section.
From the last campground northeast of Phoenix to the first town on the route is 63 miles. That’s not too bad, except that it includes a climb of 8000 feet. EIGHT THOUSAND FEET! My biggest day so far on this trip was 2700 feet. Last year, my max climb was 2500 feet. I think I can handle a couple of 4000 foot climbs coming up in this trip, now that I’ve been biking for two weeks.
But 8000? That still seems very difficult at my age (64) and bike+gear weight (94 pounds) and relative lack of training (I live in Wisconsin).
So when Bob & Mary offered to drive me and my bike 50 miles up that monster pass, I didn’t even hesitate. Maybe I have lost all my morals, but I have to say this has been a great relief to me.
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I still climbed 2133 feet today, but it seemed easy. My main concern was the predicted high winds in the afternoon, which would be direct headwinds as I headed south.
I was on my bike after my big cheat around 10:30 am, after saying goodbye to Bob & Mary. I stopped for lunch at the one town of the day, Tonto Basin, where I sat on the curb eating grocery store chicken, apple, banana, Chex mix, and bars. I also got some free grapes from Bill, who was manning a table for voter registration and selling Trump memorabilia.
After lunch, I was riding along happily when all of a sudden a maniac biker behind me started yelling, “Tom! Tom!”
It was Regan Freeman, a guy I met in the Southern Tier Facebook group a week or two ago. When he pulled into the grocery store in Tonto Basin, Bill the Trump guy said, “Are you with that biker who just left here?”
Regan said, “Was his name by any chance Tom?” When confirmed, he put it into high gear to catch me. If i were ethical, I would point out that Regan is not only doing the 8000-foot climb today, he is going all the way to Globe, for a total of 11,000 feet of climb!!
But beware: His bike and gear weighs half of mine (no camping gear or photo journalism equipment), his age is less than half mine, and his body forgot to have an ounce of fat. He looks like an Olympic athlete. So yes, I guess it is physically possible to do this climb in one day, but I still have no regrets about cheating, only excuses.
It was fun getting some drone videos of Regan biking after we parted ways. It’s much easier to control the flight while standing on the ground than to film myself while biking.
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When I reached the Chollo USFS campsite on Roosevelt Lake at 2:30 pm, the view was stunning. But I still had a lot of daylight and energy left, and the winds were not as bad as expected. I looked at the ACA map, and strongly considered pushing seven more miles to the next campsite. But it was another 2000 feet of climb, and would mess up my schedule, since I’m working around a 4000-foot climb in two days.
So I decided to stay put, and started setting up my tent in a site overlooking the big lake. Good thing — before I could even put the poles together, the winds hit. Suddenly I was having a hard time setting up the tent, since it was being whipped around so much. It thought it was a kite!
I had to get it staked down before it blew into the lake, but the ground was too hard to push the stakes in with my bike shoes like I normally do. So I found a flat rock and pounded them in the old-fashioned way. I also tied the tent to the picnic table, just in case the stakes were all ripped up.
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Now that I had sleeping accommodations, I looked for a shower. Nobody I talked to knew if this campground even had a shower. I eventually did find a great shower house an half mile away, except that it had no hot water. So I took a pseudo-shower, mopping up my dirty sweaty skin one section at a time with my mini backpacking towel. It wasn’t quite like the hour-long soak in the hot tub last night under the stars, but I guess it was better than using baby wipes.
I had zero cell reception at the campsite, so I actually broke out my Kindle for the first time this trip! Then I took some pictures of a glorious sunset with saguaro cactus foreground, processed some drone and GoPro videos, wrote my journal entry for the day, and went to bed early.
Tomorrow I get to ride in the mountains again!
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TRANSLATIONS/BACKGROUND: “CANTBIRD” = CA-AZ-NM-TX Bike Ride, my own nickname for the 1000 miles on the western half of the Southern Tier Bicycle Route, from San Diego to El Paso, using maps from ACA (Adventure Cycling Association). (I did the 1500-mile eastern half in March 2024, which I called GUMBIRD [Gulf of Mexico Bike Ride].)
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LINKS:
Old-fashioned BLOG if you have friends who don’t use Facebook:
“Old Scouter” Facebook page if you want to follow big adventures with more pictures and video clips (but not unrelated personal posts):
“Old Scouter” YouTube page (when I get time to edit after the trip):
“No regrets, … only excuses”.
That could be a fridge magnet.
Or an Argus quote 😉