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Southern Tier Tinnitus

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  The Goatshead Thorn: one of the sharpest objects known to man The Desert is comprised of sharp object designed to puncture your tires and air mattress. These objects include but are not limited to goathead thorns, stainless steel wires from exploded truck tires, various cacti, rocks of all sizes, glass shards, thorn trees, and tire levers. If the sharp objects don’t puncture your tube, the heat will melt and displace your rim tape, again, resulting in a puncture. Do not move from the center of the road. If you do immediately stop and check your tires for goatshead thorns. Use tubeless tires when riding in the desert. Budget a quart of water every 12 miles or one hour, whichever comes first. Drinking and driving is the rule in the desert, not the exception. Evidence of this is the broken bottles every 4.3 inches of roadway. There are more pickup trucks than people on the desert. They travel at approximately 85 mph regardless of the road. Roosters outnumber pickup trucks and usually do
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Mexico, then Texas

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The Hachita Rest Area Hachita McDonalds The Presbyterian Chuch hasn’t been used since COVID started Bike Ranch sign  Running Volvo and it’s donor car  After awhile you have to think hard about what day of the week it is. On Thursday we were in Hachita staying at the Bike Ranch which gets a lot of traffic from both the Foottrail and bicycle versions of the Continental Divide Trail. The end of the CDT is only about 50 miles south at the Mexican border. Hachita Hachita is part ghost town, part occupied but with many more abandoned than occupied buildings. The local store is the town’s gathering spot and also helps resupply the CDT hikers and bikers with a good selection of trail food. We ran into a couple of hikers there on the last few miles of the CDT- they usually covered 25-30 miles and would be done in 2 days after starting June 30. Friday- Columbus and Paloma On Friday we rode to Columbus, NM, which is notable as the location of the cross border raid by Pancho Villa in March of 2016
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To Infinity and Beyond….

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  To Infinity and  Beyond, stolen from  Buzz  Lightyear, was today’s theme. Once we got off I-10 (that’s another story), we were surrounded by mountains but the sight lines went, well, to infinity. Beautiful terrain- again. We had to start the ride on I-10 for the first twelve miles. It was ok for a couple of miles, being repaved for the next 5 miles, then just plain crappy. Due to lack of a shoulder we crossed over to the lane being repaved and worked our way around the construction equipment. The construction workers got it and gave us no flack. After I-10 we had great roads with no traffic for the rest of the 48 miles. The only negative was 10-15 mph headwinds for most of the ride. Coming into Hachita we pulled into the half mile dust and dirt drive to the Bicycle Ranch. Jeffrey pulled right in behind us and immediately and pulled out a couple of ice cold Coors  Lites almost before we got in the door. Being only 3 miles from the Continental Divide Trail he gets a steady stream of cy
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New Mexico

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  Old Duncan Fire Truck Woke up this morning to 38F. It was on the chilly side and even with my 20F sleeping bag I had my bike tights and two long sleeves on to stay warm.  Brian’s rear tire had gone flat overnight - the culprit was found to be a - you guessed it- goathead thorn. After Brian fixed out we warmed up with coffee and a pancake breakfast at Hildi’s Restaurant a block from the city park. So the flat tire  contest is tightening up- 6 for me and 4 for Brian. My air mattress with the patch held air longer- but I still had to blow up up once at night. I’ll stick it in the tub tonight and try again. The New Mexico Border! The big news is that we crossed the New Mexico State line and almost as important we will get sunset a bit later. The ride today was pretty non-descript- sagebrush with mountains in the distance. I do not remember the road turning at all between Duncan and Lordsburg. Lordsburg is pretty much there because of Interstate 10 - I’d skip the exit is you were ever pas
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Anyone Lose a Garmin eTrex10?

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  After a quick oatmeal and coffee breakfast we headed east - it was about 50 degF so we were wearing tights, long sleeves, etc. First stop was for a “real” breakfast in Pima. My burrito had chorizo, egg, and potatoes in it and weighed about 2 pounds. It stayed with me for the next 30 miles. That’s all I’ll say about that! We finished the day in Duncan after a long but fairly gentle climb and a 9 miles descent for a total of 68 miles.  The high point of the ride was a Garmin eTrex 10 that I found along the road. Cool! I will see if Garmin can locate the owner by its serial number when I get home. I had to Re-inflate my mattress pad 3 times last night, each time after sleeping on the rocky ground for an hour or so. Once we arrived in Duncan I went to the tire shop next to the city park we’re camping in and found the pinhole leak by dipping it in their water tank. Peanut, the shop owner, was most helpful. Opening the previously used tube of repair cement- you guessed it- it had solidifie
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High Rollers

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  Sunday from Bylas camp We started the day at Oak Flats expecting a long downhill into Globe and then mostly flats with a few small hills. As always our expectations were exceeded as we had a roller coaster day including a 600’ climb right out of camp. The rollers from Globe to Bylas were Arizona sized, not Ohio size.  We went thru the very large San Carlos Apache reservation. We talked to a Native American, Duane, in Peridot. He had a lot of pride in the reservation and directed us to the wildlife museum which had a great display of all the animals native to the reservation. Of special note are the elk including one of record size.  When you’re out on the highway for this many miles you see an amazing amount of stuff that’s is left on the pavement. A small sampling would include phones, shirts,  ball caps, blankets, witches hat, crescent wrench, sockets, screw drivers, ratchets, tin snips, nuts, bolts, washers, tie down straps, bungee cords, coins, hub caps, old tires, failed tires,
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The Big Up

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  We took a zero mile day Saturday staying with old friends Dale and Lisa Youngs. They were wonderful hosts, feeding us and giving us the run of the house. Dale did a Home Depot run and did an excellent upgrade on the rack to frame joint that had failed earlier on the trip. He also took us the the bike shop and let us use his garage and shop to do some minor bike repairs.     And the homemade lasagna that Lisa made for us and served us on the back patio was great! Thank you Dale and Lisa and we are expecting a visit next time you’re in Ohio! Sunday’s route was from Chandler to Live Oak Flats outside of Superior just off US60.    We had just over 60 miles with the first 40 being mostly flat with a bit of headwind. There was a lot of climbing to get to Superior then a fairly steep one getting to the campground.. The last stretch was up the Cottonwood Canyon- the pictures don’t really do it justice. But I’ll just say it was a classic mountain climb. Along the way we stopped and talked to
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