The Longest Day--Prescott to Phoenix

 I would venture to guess that every half-serious cyclist has two bicycling dreams--goals they would like to accomplish.  Now, whether they admit these outlandish fantasies out loud of course is an entirely different matter.  The Century (completing 100 miles in a day) and a Coast-to-Coast tour.  The former is certainly more affordable than the latter.  I have to admit to both these delusions.  When I asked my colleague and friend, Spanish professor extraordinaire Curtis Kleinman, if he would accompany me on a day long trek from my house in Prescott to my sister-in-law's house in downtown Phoenix, he temporarily lost leave of all his rational faculties and said yes.  So we planned the trip for Saturday, November 17.  We knew it would be cold (close to freezing) when we departed the mountains in Prescott, but were reasonably certain we wouldn't cook once we arrived in the Sonora Desert. We were right on both counts.

Curtis at the beginning of our Century ride.  We'd add on an additional two miles

.

The plan was to pull out of the driveway, elevation 5,400 feet above sea level, at 6:30am yesterday morning.  Six fifteen came (our agreed upon meeting time)--No Curtis.  I took a seat in my truck to wait, hoping it would provide just a few more degrees of additional warmth.  While I anticipated Curtis' arrival, a 250-300 pound wild javelina appeared under our front porch, about 20 feet away from me, looking for tidbits that had fallen from the bird feeder above.  Not wanting to tangle with this pig-like creature (though they are neither pigs nor boars, but collared peccaries), I stayed in the vehicle.  Then I realized that I had left energy bars sitting on the front steps!  I was sure this over-sized omnivore would go straight for the Cookies-N-Cream Power Bars, and I held my breath.  I guess the foil-sealed packs really work, as he (or she--I wasn't going to get close enough to find out) ignored the goodies.  I tried to snap a few photos, but it was still too dark.  After about 5 minutes, he wandered away.

At about 7:15am, I try to decide whether to take off without my partner, or to wait.  By this time my wife is up, bemoaning that she has lost a precious few minutes of sleep.  "Why don't you just call him!" she forcefully (but kindly) suggested.  What if he was asleep?  What if I woke his whole family?  Hoping that he was conscious to the world, I called his cell phone.

"I am SO sorry!  I'm on my way.  I'm right by the college.  Have you left yet?"  Someone, we won't mention any names, but it wasn't me, had either shut down his alarm in a sleepy trance or had failed to operate the device correctly.  (As a result of this experience, Curtis has pledged to be more sympathetic to students when they offer the excuse that they slept in.)  At 7:40 am, we pulled out of the drive.  Considering it was winter, we were pushing the envelope on daylight at the other end.  We ventured out, nonetheless.

Peeples Valley near Yarnell--Wide valley surrounded by mountains.

 With Phoenix at an elevation of 1,150 feet above sea level, it would seem that it would be downhill all the way.  Not so fast.  We climbed for five miles, up to the summit of the Highway 89 South in the Bradshaw mountains, then spent the next five miles traversing up and down across ridges, until we began our descent into Wilhoit and the Kirkland Valley.  This would be a pattern we'd repeat for the first 50 miles.  Here's the rough profile of our trip:
            Prescott:  5,400 ft.
            Bradshaw Mountain Summit:  6,100 ft.
            Kirkland Junction:  4,100 ft.
            Yarnell:  4,800 ft.
            Congress:  3,000 ft.
            Wickenburg:  2,000 ft.
            Phoenix:  1,100 ft.
So while the overall elevation change is about 4,300 feet, we'd actually climb around 2,000 feet over the first 50 miles of our journey.

Could be Kansas--except for the mountains!

Once we hit the Bradshaw summit, we had a great 10 mile coast to the bottom of the valley, then began the climb up to Yarnell through Peeple's Valley.  We started shedding our outer layers at this point (only to don them again before we headed down the 1,800 foot Yarnell Hill into Congress).  Peeples Valley seems to appear out of nowhere.  The valley now has lots of horse farms, and when the grass in green in the spring it reminds one of places in Kentucky.  "Peeples" is not a misspelling.  The place is named after A.H. Peeples, who in 1863 discovered a small gold mine on Rich Hill in nearby Weaversville (now a ghost town).

Old farm implements along side the road in Peeple's Valley.

.  The ascent continued into the small town of Yarnell.  Yarnell is also named after a gold prospector who discovered the precious mineral nearby in the 1860s.  Now the town sports cute antique-ish shops and a unique complement of roadside restaurants.  However, what Yarnell is now really famous is it's geographical location.  It sits on the southern edge of a plateau whose cliff-like walls drop off 2,000 feet to the desert floor below--in only 6 miles via the road.

Realist configuration of how this sign SHOULD have been posted, warning drivers and cyclists of Yarnell Hill.

I mention to Curtis that maybe we ought to stop for a photo op somewhere along the descent.  "Where should be stop?" he queried.  "At the edge of the world," I responded simply, only half in jest.  Indeed, one get's the sense, speeding down the decline at 34 miles an hour, that this may truly be the edge of the world.

Curtis at the edge of the world--Yarnell Hill.

At the bottom, in the town of Congress (also a former gold mining town), we stopped at the one and only convenience store since Prescott.  We refilled our bottles with life-giving Gatorade, and each indulged in a corn dog.  Curtis discovered processed Cherry Turnovers ("Probably the worst thing we could put in our bodies!" he exclaimed), in which we both indulged.  We rationalized that with our energy output, it would be out of our system inside an hour. We had already come over 40 miles, and completed most of our descent.  The next 60-plus miles would be slugging along seemingly interminable stretches of mostly straight roads, sometimes dodging irate semi trucks (who obviously thought we had no business sharing THEIR road), and being waved at by people who must have thought what we were doing was "cute."  We didn't spy a single cyclist for 90 miles.

The Sonora Desert near Wickenburg, looking toward Vulture Peak and Vulture Mine.

The six miles from where Highway 89 joins Arizona 93 was the worst stretch of road on the entire trip.  Sometimes we had a nice, broad clean shoulder where we could ride side by side and solve all of Yavapai College's and the world's problems.  At other times there was absolutely no room off the road; we were forced to bicycle single file and held our breath with every passing car.  Most of the drivers were very courteous and gave us a wide birth.  Most, but not all.  On the stretch of highway under review, the vehicle-bearing part of the highway had just been resurfaced and was very smooth.  However, they must have decided that they wanted to save money, and didn't bother doing anything to the decades old shoulder.  Huge cracks and lips erupted every few few feet, and riding over them was like tackling an exaggerated washboard, jarring our bodies over every ridge.  I was sure I was going to lose a tooth or severely mangle my tongue.  When I couldn't taken it any move, I edged over into the road, where I was immediately threatened with gigantic horn blasts and honks.  Even though the law allows cyclists in Arizona to be on the roadway, and vehicles are mandated to give bikers three feet of clearance, this sentiment was not shared by many of the motorists outside Wickenburg.

Santa Fe Railroad Bridge over San Domingo Wash, southwest of Wickenburg.

Our half-way point, the Wickenburg area, became a part of the U.S. after the Mexican-American War of 1848.  Gold (of course) was discovered in 1848, and gave birth to the settlement.  We made our way around the two big roundabouts on the highway, joining U.S. Highway 60 (the first coast-to-coast road in America, beginning in Venice Beach, CA and ending in Virginia Beach, VA), which would take us into Phoenix. The road quickly straightened out as the heat was rising.  While not overwhelmingly hot, the intense sun began to take its toll, and we stopped to apply sunscreen to our exposed body parts.  A little over half way between Wickenburg and Phoenix, we spotted our first legitimate store (all we'd seen were a few ramshackled roadside bars, most of which looked abandoned).  We were getting low on liguid and our bums were taking a beating, so we unhesitatingly made for Wells Country Store.  We both sat on the bench outside, stretched our legs and once again indulged in "energy food"--Curtis devoured a lemon cheese struessel cake and I an ice cream drumstick.  Curtis located the restroom where he applied another coat of "Chamois Butter" (better known in the cycling world as "Butt Butter," for obvious reasons).  At this point, both our bodies and our spirits were slightly revived, and we headed out to conquer the last 38 miles.

Curtis downing his lemon cheese struessel cake in Wittmann.

A mile after we left Wittmann and Wells Country Store, a shiny Shell service station arose from the desert.  Curtis glared at me and scowled, "I bet the restrooms would have been cleaner there!  What am I paying you for?!"  I didn't pursue the topic.

Soon the first sign of "civilization" appeared--a stop light.  In fact, it was the first stop light we'd seen since leaving Prescott almost 90 miles back.  We both grinned at each other.  The stoplights every few miles, then about every mile on Grand Avenue, gave our gluteus maximi the relief they so desperately needed by this point!  We turned west on Bell Road, and fought traffic for the next 6 or 7 miles, until we joined the Thunderbird Paseo and Arizona Canal, which provided about 15 miles of protected bike paths for us.  A few miles on the path we had to stop--we'd hit the Century Mark:  100 miles since leaving home!  We stopped an unsuspecting jogger an asked him to take a photo.  The sun was low in the sky at this point, so his shadow joined Curtis.  We didn't really care.  We had ridden a Century!

Mark and Curtis (and the jogger-photographer's shadow) at the 100-mile point of our ride in Glendale, AZ.

The oranges and reds of the Arizonan desert sunset were reflecting off the smooth waters of the canal as we made our way into the heart of Phoenix.  We had been fighting 10+ mile an hour headwinds all day, which proved exhausting and slowed us down.  We both agreed that we'd rather climb hills than fight the wind.  It was nice to be cycling in calm air.  When we turned off onto 15th Avenue, I stopped to mount my headlight on my handlebars.  Darkness was encroaching on our ride.  Both of us illuminated our red blinkers so cars could see us from behind.  Five miles south, we jogged onto the Grand Canal for a half mile, which took us right to Barb's house and hot showers!

Ten and a half hours after leaving Joseph Street--eight hours 46 minutes and 113 miles in the saddle--the deed was done.  After letting the warm water massage our weary bodies, my wife Carolyn and her sister Barb treated us to some of the best Mexican food in Phoenix at America's Tacos.  Returning from our feast, we loaded our bikes into the truck and drove back to Prescott.  What had taken us 10 hours the "back way" to Phoenix on bikes took less than 2 hours via Freeway and Highway in a car.  But I don't think Curtis and I would have chosen to do it any other way.  The world is experienced differently on two wheels, and we accomplished a physical and mental feat we could be proud of.