The Wicked Wind Of The East

Prognosticating is something best left to professionals. Then again, paying someone to prognosticate can be dubious at best. I mean, if those professionals could REALLY see the future they probably shouldn’t need to be paid to do so.

That said, you don’t need to be a prognosticator to predict where I made my first stop this morning. While I didn’t need breakfast, I did want to have some food for the road and since there was a Subway on my way out of Globe it only made sense to stop there – even though after 87 Subway stops they still haven’t offered to sponsor me. Maybe number 88 will be the lucky one. Spoiler Alert: To the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Today’s destination was Safford, 125 km from Globe. From the perspective of distance, that’s almost a perfect day’s ride – and much of it was downhill. It had the makings for a very enjoyable day. However, the wind had different thoughts. And when you factor in those thoughts the day became significantly less enjoyable. In fact, this was one of the toughest days I’ve had in a long time. A very long time.

I mentioned the wind yesterday and the impact it had on my ride (i.e. an embarrassingly slow average speed). Today the wind was even stronger. And I had a lot further to go. Yes, I managed to maintain a reasonable average speed on the day, but it took a LOT of effort to do so. Essentially, it was as if I spent the day climbing a hill for 125 km. Obvious Statement of the Day: Today was exhausting.

The wind made everything a workout today – both uphill and downhill. There was no coasting. There was no relaxing. That said, I knew there would be days like this. And since I still haven’t figured out how to control the weather I did the only thing I could do. I pedalled long and hard. Side note: I can’t say that today’s conditions came as a surprise since the forecast had called for very strong winds from the east. Today those forecasts were right. Very right.

Anticipating the worst, I was up early today. Really early. Before-the-sun early. In fact, it was still dark when I was packing up my tent and gear. It was less dark when I was enjoying a leisurely breakfast of items purchased at Safeway (Grrrr) last night – but it was still early. I was on the road by 7:00.

At the risk of repeating myself, today really would’ve been quite enjoyable if not for the wind. The scenery continued to be very impressive and more varied than I would’ve expected from a desert. The shoulders were generally good and free of debris – although there were a few places with some notable obstacles. Fortunately I was able to circumvent my way around them.

With my day pretty much consumed with battling the wind, there weren’t really any other adventures to write about. Although, I did stop at the Apache Market where I was able to get two scoops of Mint Chocolate Chunk ice cream for only $2. The ice cream proved to be another challenge as it was melting significantly faster than I could eat it – and I can eat ice cream pretty quickly! Of course, that was a much more pleasant challenge than the wind.

It was shortly after 4:00 when I finally arrived in Safford. I won’t lie, I was more than a little happy to end today’s ride. I was even happier when I met my Warm Showers hosts for the night.

Jay and his wife have been very welcoming and generous with everything. And, on top of that, Jay has been very interesting to talk to. His profile says he’s 77 but he has a lot of energy and a wide range of interests. And he enjoys discussing them.

I got myself settled at Jay’s and my hope was to get a few more updates done tonight but, well … exhaustion has somewhat consumed me. Did I mention it was a windy day on the road? While I really am trying to get caught up, any writing I could do tonight would run the risk of being significantly incoherent. And I think that’s significantly worse that having to wait another day. Then again, maybe that’s just me.

Today’s totals:
Distance travelled: 126.62 km
Ride time: 6:35:57
Average speed: 19.18 km/h
Maximum speed: 43.91 km/h