Day 10 – Epic Ride!

Miles Completed: 94.7

Cumulative miles: 544.2

Miles to St Augustine: 2,553

Today’s ride will possibly be the hardest day of the whole trip. Before we started, the group was given two options. 1. Ride the entire scheduled length from Downtown Phoenix to Tonto Basin, AZ of about 95 miles or 2. Hop on the van with your bike and get transported to a point that eliminated the first 30 miles. Most people wanted to do option 2. However, Dana and I wanted to ride the whole thing, so the two of us started riding from the Phoenix hostel at 6:30 this morning while the rest of the group loaded their bikes on the van. Dana and I liked our Sunday morning ride (with no traffic) that took us on a nice canal path, rode into Tempe past Arizona State, rode into Mesa past Sloan Park, and finally, rode past my favorite house in Mesa (wait for the pictures). This was a very gradual uphill ride past the 202 loop and then we headed north up the Bush Highway and then the Beeline Highway to about 15 miles before Payson where we turned right and made our way to Tonto Basin.

Not only was this a long ride but it was mostly uphill. The elevation gain was 6,328 feet. Yikes!

Today was also my first day with tire problems. At mile 42, my front tire popped a leak. Luckily, the sealant in my tubeless tire stopped the leak. I also put some crazy glue on the leak spot and that seemed to solve the problem. At mile 57, my back tire popped and this time it was questionable whether it would hold. I continued riding until I got to the Adenture Cycling van which was at about mile 68. I pumped up both tires and then ate my lunch (peanut butter and jelly sandwich). The van sometimes parks along the route when there are no gas stations or other places to refill water bottles, which was definitely the case today.

After a quick lunch and rest, I noticed the rear wheel was flat. After help from Pat to try and plug the tire, it did not hold, so I put a tube in it and that seemed to do the trick. So after about an hour at that stop, I was off and riding again and made it to the Punkin Center lodge in Tonto Basin a little after 4:30, more than 10 hours after I started.

I’m glad I chose to ride the entire 95 miles. There was lots to see through Phoenix and the ride up into the mountains was very scenic. A great day overall!