drafting in my living room, surprise, the finger, black hole

September 28, 2008

Day Seven

"If there is a heaven and hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix."
- Hunter S. Thompson -

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We woke up at 4:30. Intentionally, it pains me to say.

As he was loading his bike, Klaus noticed his tire was flat so he spent a few minutes repairing it. He's become very fast at repairs over the years. Amazingly so.

After stopping at Circle K we left town a few minutes after 6:00, then had a nice downhill ride for a while, although the headwind evened things out.

The sun rose slowly and shone on the red rocks and hills. The countryside is harsh, but impressive in its stark beauty.

Because of the wind, we took turns drafting, alternating after doing one mile each. In addition to being tall (about 6' 2"), Klaus has a big bike (31 pounds) and carries a lot of equipment (90 pounds plus another few pounds of water).

What that means is that drafting behind him is like sitting on a stationary bicycle in your living room. When I say sitting, I mean SITTING - I didn't even have to pedal much, just an occasional turn of the crank, and spent my time trying to figure out how to attach a small DVD player to the back of his bike. I don't think he would've noticed the extra weight.

Unfortunately for him, drafting behind me is like trying to protect yourself from a hurricane by holding up some dental floss.

We stopped only briefly along the way, to eat an apple, switch our empty water bottles for our full ones, and snack on a Clif bar. We made good time to the Surprise ahead of us.

Thirty one miles later we arrived in Surprise, a town on the outskirts of Phoenix which (surprise!) elicited more jokes: "Well, THIS is a Surprise." "Surprise, we're here!"

Klaus loves Starbucks, and has all of the stores programmed into his iPhone so he'll know where they are along our route. It was 9:00 in the morning and just starting to get hot so we stopped at the first Starbucks we saw for a cold drink with more sugar in it than caffeine. Refreshing, though.

I wouldn't go so far to say that I only travel through rural areas. However, it's not a stretch to say that when I tour on a bicycle I can frequently stand in the center of town and see four City Limits signs. Phoenix, however, has 1.6 million people, and the Phoenix metropolitan area has just under 5 million.

Now, having "arrived" in Phoenix, we felt a sense of completion. Unfortunately, because of its size, we still had thirty five miles to go. And that's CITY riding, which means stopping at every stop sign and every traffic light. And every Starbucks. Of course, we still had our headwind, only it was a little stronger now.

We plan to stay with my friend, Dave Nutz, who lives in Scottsdale, on the other side of Phoenix. The heat and wind prevented us from arriving at his place by our original goal of noon, so we stopped at Wendy's for lunch.

It was late afternoon by the time we finally arrived at his house. I thought it was particularly nice of him to let us stay there considering it wouldn't be just me, but a total stranger I picked up along the way.

Dave, known as Dr. Nutz to many, is a physician. He's a Physiatrist, specializing in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (not urology, as his last name would suggest), and after a little whining on my part, he took a look at my finger. For the past several months part of my index finger has been going numb when I ride, and this trip has exacerbated it. Because Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is so common in bikers, I assumed that's what was wrong. In about fifteen seconds he determined the real problem: there's a nerve in each finger that splits at about the knuckle and I had been compressing it while riding. I made an adjustment to my handlebars and hoped it would help.

The three of us, plus another friend, Mike Gruba, went out for Chinese food at Flo's.

On the way back from dinner Dave dropped me off at the Scottsdale airport so I could pick up a rental car for tomorrow, a rest day. I had called several agencies and was happy to learn I could pick one up at the nearby Scottsdale airport. When I entered, it was completely dark, and so vacant that I could hear my footsteps echoing. Fortunately, Dave had waited outside. We went back to his place and I started the process over. The second time I called I was told that the only place to get one is Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, so Dave drove me all the way to THAT airport, which took an additional 45 minutes each way.

Maybe this only happens to me, but Sky Harbor seems to have the gravitational mass of a black hole. Every time I tried to exit, I somehow found myself being sucked back in, whether because I was in the left lane when I needed to be in the right, or I was in the right lane when I needed to be in the left, or I missed a turn trying to dodge the wild-eyed drivers who seemed to think we were in a bumper car park, or, more likely, some kind of Dr. Whovian space-time loop.

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distance: 66 miles
average speed: 12 mph
time on bike: 5:29:20
cumulative: 357 miles

Today's ride: 66 miles (106 km)
Total: 356 miles (573 km)

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