(February 2)

Day 39 - Duncan to Surprise AZ

Cars are Fast

After my journal post on Wednesday afternoon, I was coming back into the quaint little B&B I'd found in Duncan and met Eritia. She is a young Canadian woman (Ontario) about my kids' age Who had just been on the road a couple of days having begun this particular journey of hers in Albuquerque. She flew from her home in Ontario to Albuquerque and is also riding to San Diego. This is not her first tour. In other winters she has flown to Phoenix and ridden up to the Grand Canyon and back as well as having flown to Houston and ridden to Florida.

Mt. Graham in the distance. Not the highest point in Arizona, but still over 10,000 feet. Mt. Graham overlooks the beautiful valley in which the farming communities of Safford and Thatcher Arizona are located.

 

 

The contents of the Package were in my possession before 8am since I was standing at the door of the Duncan Post Office when they opened at 7:45am. Happy that I could keep moving on down the road, I hussled to get moving.

 

Not that the ride to Safford was in any way going to be taxing....it was only a 38 mile ride after all. But my Mom and my stepdad Ray wee already on the road to Safford to meet me and if I didn't get my motor running at top speed, they'd be meeting me 10 miles out of Duncan rather than in Safford.

 

And...I surprised myself here...I really wanted to ride. I know that sounds strange coming from a person on a 2,300 mile bike ride, but the two reasons I ride my bike at home are fitness and community/friendship rather than the actual pleasure in the process of riding my bike. At home, I don't think I've ridden solo more than a couple of times since I took up cycling about 18 months ago. Mostly because, with only one or two exceptions, riding my bike has always...and I mean always...involved saddle pain. Ranging from soreness to numbness to outright "wow that hurts!" pain after anything more than about 15 miles has been my cycling life. And, yes, I've had my bike professionally fit twice. I'm now up to trying 6 saddles (and counting I'm sure), each professed to be the folks trying to help me as the saddle they've found to be "the final solution for riders who can never find a comfortable saddle."

 

In short, while I love the community and fitness aspects of cycling, it has always...with extremely few exceptions (like 2 rides maybe)...been a literal pain in the ass for me.

 

And the reasons I'm now on this solo bike journey did not include a desire to ride my bike every day simply to enjoy the process of pedaling my bike forward along a roadway OR to see any sights. In fact, I knew it would be...like almost my rides...a stern test of pain endurance. But I've grown so used to hating being on whatever saddle is on my bike, I no longer worry about that and just "git 'r dun." Instead, I undertook this journey for, primarily, the chance at self-discovery and to separate my old life in time and distance from what might be my new life. My relationship with sitting on my bike was simply an obstacle to overcome just like the wind or rain.

 

But, on THIS day, I really wanted to ride my bike. I still anticipated constantly shifting in my saddle to relieve pain points in my sit bones starting at about 20 minutes into my ride. I still anticipated my "boy parts" being literally TOTALLY NUMB as they've been for these last several weeks. So, you can imagine how surprised I was to MISS riding my bike. After the "Knee Days" in Deming and then the "Package Days" in Duncan, I'd had as many days off in a short span as I'd taken during the entire rest of the ride combined, and it felt like too long. So, with my ride already driving toward Safford, you can see that I needed to HUSTLE if I was to maximize my time to ride.

 

And hustle I did! Over about the first 10 miles or so, I powered up and out of the Gila River valley that Duncan sits in. Then on the flat-to-slightly downhill run into Safford I was flying. Well, flying compared to my usual rate of movement! It felt so good! Even the pain was barely noticeable in the joy of just riding. And darned if I didn't almost outrace my ride! I was only about 5 miles out from Safford when my mom arrived at a gas station to wait for me to arrive. Truly a glorious riding day!

 

But, then, after loading up my bike and trailer in her "Stow & Go" minivan (how appropriately named!), I was back in a car for the first time since Van Horn Texas, and only the third time in almost 6 weeks. And this time what I noticed was how strange it was to go so fast! I'd been planning on riding from Safford to Globe at one point and knew, roughly, that it would probably be an 8 or 9 hour ride day for me...and maybe more. In contrast, the car trip to Globe felt instantaneous. And hills that might have take me 30 minutes to power up in my lowest gear took only seconds to traverse in a car.

 

And so began my visit to my family and my hometown. I was born, and grew up, in Phoenix but have rarely been back over my adult lifetime. While I'm here I've got lots of visiting to do and some errands to run to get myself ready for the final segment of my journey, and I know I'll thoroughly enjoy my all-too-rare time with my Phoenix family.

 

But one thing I also look forward to is riding my bike again on Monday :)