Day 4 - Brawley, CA > Wickenburg, AZ (115.1 miles)

 May 8

Route view below:

Today started off terribly and finished up fantastic, and most of the in between was awesome! We were all a little anxious about the distance today combined with crazy town winds and riding 30 miles on I-10. You're a little stressed when you start each day trying to make sure you have everything for the ride, plus you have to pack up your luggage for the vans to carry to the next hotel,  plus you have to feed your face, etc. Once you start pedaling, the stress disappears, and you just ride and try to not do anything stupid. Well, the cycling Gods conspired against us today as Bill had a flat about 2 miles into the ride, and we needed to replace the tire, which meant waiting for a support van (as you watch everyone else ride off...). We finally got rolling again and made it out to I-10 where we had skipped pergatory and went straight to cycling hell: road conditions were awful, 30+ mph cross winds, 18 wheelers were non-stop, and Stuart flatted about 4 miles after we got on the highway - look at the nail coming out of his tire (I wish the photo captured the mood better and the thought clouds above our heads):

Check out the flags where we had a quick rest stop to gather our wits after fixing the flat:

The four of us have ridden in some pretty sketchy situations, and I have now placed the time on I-10 in my top 5 worst segments of a ride. Trust me, it was not good. If Dunaway had done this ride with us, I bet they would have closed I-10 while we rode down it today to make it safer. Ok, enough drama and scary talk...the rest of the ride was pretty spectacular. We had rest stops at mile 38, mile 68, and mile 88, and the good news about having mechanical issues early on, we were at the very back of the group. This meant that we got to play Pac Man eating up all the other riders as the day wore on. The rest stops are fine here, but our wives have spoiled us as anyone who rides to SGI can attest. The rest of the ride was much better on road conditions, traffic, and the wind became our friend as the day wore on. We were riding mostly east and a bit north, and the wind was screaming out of the north early and shifted to a west wind after 1 pm. This meant we rolled fast for the last 45 miles, and the finish was about 5 miles downhill with a STRONG tailwind...Chuck C would have been wagging his tail. We had a bunch of the other riders jump on the Griffin train, and the last couple of hours was a magic carpet ride. One thing that has been crazy is the amount of fluids you have to take in since you're in the desert and riding all day - duh, you say? Yes, we expected this, but I  drank 9 liters of water and 3 liters of gatorade today. 

Ok, the funny meme that was crowd-sourced from Greg D made me giggle. If his job at Cat gets eliminated, he should try comedy...Greg claims that he fed ChatGPT info from my blog, and this is the graphic that it gave him:

Quote that seems appropriate for today is from one of favorite books: Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius - "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." 

If you are not making this graphic large enough to read it each day, you might be missing something funny or important:

Ok, tomorrow is another day that I circled on the calendar as a hard day. The mileage is not bad around 60 miles, but we begin climbing with 6,100 ft of ascent. Today, I wish I weighed more because of the wind, and tomorrow, I will wish that I weighed less. Yes, curly haired girls want straight hair and vice versa. Thanks again for your photos, memes, prayers, text messages, etc. 

Talk tomorrow.