Danny’s Ride

Day Statistics:
90.12 Miles
5 Hours, 22 Minutes, 27 Seconds on the Bike
38.6 MPH Max Speed
Ahead of Schedule By 30 Miles!

We started out today by sleeping in until 7:30.  What a great treat!  We certainly deserved it after conquering the mountain yesterday.  It took a lot out of us and we needed to recover to prepare for our new day’s journey.  Our plan was to eat a great breakfast, pack up our bags and head out by 10:30.

We took turns using the shower and then each separately enjoyed the hotel’s complementary breakfast which consisted of cereal, fruit, yogurt and orange juice.  After breakfast, we each had a list of things we needed to do before we could leave.  Danny worked on our upcoming route, Ken checked the oil in the motor home and filled up the tank with gas and I continued to update the site.

With all three of us going in different directions, we pushed back our departure time to 10:45.  Once in the motor home, we still had to drive 50 miles back to yesterday’s ending place.  With Danny driving, we headed west on the same highway we would be biking back on throughout the day.

About 30 miles into the drive, we passed a 4-wheeler rental in the middle of the desert.    As soon as we passed the rental shop, Danny said, “Wouldn’t it be neat if we rented four wheelers?”  Ken and I agreed but neither of us realized Danny was seriously considering it.  “Let’s do it!” said Danny suddenly.  And with that, it was decided we were going to rent four-wheelers as we passed back on our bicycles.

Twenty miles later, Danny parked at the exact location he and I stopped biking at yesterday.  Driving over, we realized we would have the wind at our backs but as we stepped out of the motor home, we surprised and excited to find what type of an advantage it was going to make.  So we unloaded our bicycles from the motor home and him the pavement around 12:00 p.m.

The first twenty miles flew by except for some minor bike trouble with my bike.  My chain fell off twice in the first fifteen miles.  The first time it happened, Danny was biking ahead of me and didn’t realize I had to stop to fix my chain.  I placed my bike in the grass on the side of the road and began to working on the chain to put it back into place.  A pickup truck went by me, slowed for a minute and then continued on.

When I finished putting the chain on, I wiped off my black grease covered fingers in the dirt and began riding.  I had ridden less than a mile, when I came around a corner and saw Danny biking up hill towards me.  “Are you alright?” he yelled from a distance.  “Yeah, chain fell off.  Sorry.  I had to stop to put it back on,” I shouted back.

“Oh, I was so worried.  A car came by and told me that my partner had gone right into a cactus!”  I started laughing but quickly stopped as I could see a look of true concern still on Danny’s face.  “I was so worried,” he said again.  All I could do at this point, was smile and say, “I’m glad I didn’t.  That sure would have hurt.”

We biked for an hour and covered 20 miles (thanks mainly to a slight downhill and great tailwind).  We pulled up at the four-wheel rental place where Ken had already gotten all the information on the rentals.  With a couple signatures and a brief orientation, we were on our way.  With nothing but distant mountains, endless sand, mixed in with some rocks and brush, we couldn’t imagine a better place to be.  We rode cautiously at first but quickly found the gas.  What a thrill it was to be weaving through the sand dunes at 40 mph.

While I was a little over a mile from the rental shop, my four-wheeler died.  Now, as I have said before, I am not a mechanic by any sense of the word.  So, I found the nearest four-wheelers and played to one of my strengths by raising my hands in the air to show them I was stuck.  They quickly came over and tried to start.  Nothing.  It didn’t even humor us with the coughing noise an engine makes when it’s sick.  Nothing but silence.

So, my new friends offered to put the broken down four wheeler in the back of their pickup truck and haul it (and me, I hoped) back to the rental.  I couldn’t have been quicker to take them up on their offer if my life depended on it.  So, with four people, we managed to lift the front two wheels into the bed pickup and roll the rest of the beast into the back as well.

They gave me and my 4-wheeler a lift back to the rental, dropped me off and I highly doubt I will ever see or hear from them again.  The kindness of a complete stranger was simply amazing.

After we finished on the four-wheelers, Danny and I hit the road with 40 miles to go before reaching our destination of Ramona.  The wind died down considerably but we were still able to make good time.  About two hours later, we were cruising into Brawley.  When we got there, we laid in the grass at the edge of a street corner to stretch and consider going further.

After about five minutes, we decided to hit the bikes and make another 15 miles.  It was a beautiful day with little traffic and we were able to cruise along.  When we got 10 miles further, the next town was 20 miles away so we decided to give it a try.  We were feeling great but the sun was starting to set and we didn’t want to take a chance in the dark.

As the sun set, we turned on our flashing bike light and stuck to the far edge of the wide shoulder.  Luckily, there was virtually no traffic.  We finished with 90.12 miles in 5 hours, 22 minutes.  Now if, we had an extra 20 minutes of sunlight, we most certainly would have broken the 100 mile mark for the day.

Unfortunately, the town we biked to, was far from anything I consider as a town.  For me, you officially receive town status when you have a hotel.  This “town” had nothing except a gas station.  So, we ended driving nearly 60 miles to Blythe, which we will be biking to tomorrow.

In Blythe, we finished the night off at Denny’s, found a hotel and called it a night.  Tomorrow, we will do at least 60 miles and possibly more.  The California/Arizona border is not far from here.  We may see if we can make it.