Keeper of the Statistics

 

Week 2:

Kim’s Birthday is today October 9, 2015.  Her birthday wish was a day off, so we end week 2 with a day of leisure.  In six days of cycling this week, we cycled 345 miles with 13,998 feet of climbing.  This is the same distance as last week with one day less of riding and 1,000 more feet of climbing.          

That means 22.2% of the time for the trip has passed.  We have ridden 22.5% of the total miles of the trip.  We have completed 32% of the vertical climbing on the trip. 

Day 8 was 73 miles from WIckenberg to Tempe.

Day 9 was 55 miles from Tempe to Superior with 1654 feet of climbing and a 15 MPH headwind for 35 miles.

Day 10 was 32 miles with 2000 feet of climbing in an Arizona rainstorm.  Superior/Apache Gold Casino.

Day 11 was 70 miles from the casino to Safford AZ.

Day 12 was 54 miles with two mountain passes and 4900 feet of climbing.  We boon docked on the side of the road.

And, day 13 was 61 miles over the continental divide and into Silver City NM.

Tomorrow we ride about 30 miles and then climb the 8300 foot Emory Pass.  The highest point on our journey.  From the top of the pass at around 40 miles, it is about 100 miles downhill and flat to Las Cruces and El Paso.

Keeper of the Statistics - Week One

Week 1 is history with seven days of riding.  No one has gone crazy --yet. (Or if they have, they haven’t acted on it.)  No one has beaten the other members of the group to death with a bicycle pump--yet.  No one has stuck the business end of the pump in his or her mouth and (quite literally) blown themselves up--yet.  I call that success.  If not for the sag support getting us to and from our start/finish points each day, this trip would have already ended.

We have learned that we really enjoy the cool serenity of riding in the predawn hours.  We have learned that tailwinds are the three eyed unicorns of cycling the Southern Tier. 

We did not get as far as we hoped, but we are still on track.  The tale of the tape for the first week: Miles 348, Vertical feet climbed 12,900.  We have added about 3 miles to the trip with a few wrong turns.

To put this in context, 11.1% of the time for the trip has passed.  We have ridden 11.3% of the total miles of the trip.  We have completed 15.3% of the vertical climbing on the trip.  We are stronger and feeling better (except for some sore bums).