2017 09-14 Boulevard to Brawley
Breakfast was at 6 this morning so we could all get an early
start as today’s ride will be 64 miles long.
One could only describe today as a real experience. To start the ride we had a little climbing,
nothing to sever and not that long. Tom
and Joe stopped at a point close to the Mexican border to take pictures of the
fence separating Mexico
and the USA , when
up walks a local man on his morning walk.
A very pleasant and friendly man named Leberto, who has been living the US
since the 60s. He asked many questions
about our journey and wished us well as he shook our hand and continued his
morning walk. You meet the nicest people
while on bike trips.
Then we entered the interstate, I8, for what should have
been a fantastic, several mile downhill.
One could easily have achieved speeds in excess of 40 MPH ,
but for one thing, which was marked by the sign at the top of the downhill,
“Winds next 12 miles”. The cross winds where so strong that it actually made
cycling down this section scary and dangerous.
The gusting winds would throw your bike first one way then the other. At times you could barley control the
steering of your bike.
After this white knuckle section, we had a slight down hill
for several miles but with a tremendous tail wind. It was easy to achieve
speeds of 20 to 30 MPH without any
effort. It was enjoyable even though the
road is in terrible shape.
After turning north for the final 12 miles to Brawley we
were greeted by head winds that slowed our speed to less than 10 MPH . Today was a day of extremes, but all
contained the power of wind.
For a change, tonight we will be camping indoors in the
fellowship hall of the Gateway Church
Here are some interesting facts about some of the riders on
this trip. Rich from Seattle , WA Utah
competed as a biathlon in the 1972 Olympics.
Eileen is a member of the support team for one of the riders in the RAM ,
which is a bike race across America
taking about 7 to 9 days.
2017 09-13 Alpine to Boulevard
As people road out of camp today, they looked especially
hard so as to avoid runing over the little goat head thorn plants. Most of the flats yesterday occurred in the
last mile into camp and no one wanted
anther flat today. These little plants
seem to be adept at growing in the cracks in the road.
Toady was another day of climbing, but unlike yesterday,
there was a few good down hill sections.
Today’s temperature was also a little cooler, only around 90 to 95. They camp ground was interesting to say the
least. It was adequate to sleep but not
much else.
2017 09-12 San Diego
to Alpine
We left San Diego
behind today and headed for Alpine, CA.
The ride was only 44 miles but was not at all an easy one. The ride out of San
Diego was loaded with turns. At times it was not easy to follow the bike
route provided by Adventure Cycling.
Traveling with a GPS though should
make this easy. The old saying goes, “Live by the sword, die by the
sword”. Let me rephrase that: “Live by technology, die by technology.” After the GPS
failed four times, helping me to get lost as many times, it finally started
acting “normal” when I reached the country roads with no turns.
The flat exit from San Diego
turned into a never ending climb, right to our camp ground. The temperature exceeded 100 degrees and the
heat quickly drained ones energy. It
was a long, slow ride into camp.
Goat head thorns are prevalent in this part of the
country. Low growing plants with pea
size seed pods, each pod loaded with little thorns. They stick to anything, but seem to be
especially fond of bike tires. Four
people had to fix flats tonight, which is never a fun experience.
We all slept well tonight.
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