Night Ride Across the Desert

The journey began with another hiccup -- a blizzard on the East Coast stymied air travel across the country, resulting in Curtis being 2 hours late out of Nashville, and he did not get into Phoenix until nearly 4:00 pm vs. 2 pm.  He still had to finish installing his bags, repacking and gearing up.  I seriously thought we were going to have to stay in Phoenix.  However, Curtis was correct, if we had the whole journey would have been messed up since Day 2 is a 300 mile ride, and there is no way we could do that and the leg from Phoenix.

Therefore, we left Phoenix on Sunday, December 26, 2010 at sunset heading for Douglas, Arizona.  From Phoenix we took I-10 East (I-10 begins in Norfolk, VA and terminates in LA) to Benson (southeast of Tuscon) and then AZ-80 to Douglas.  We traveled approximately 250 miles on this night, and did it in 4 hours, stopping for gas just outside Tuscon and in Benson.  From Benson we went through Tombstone, AZ (yes, the Tombstone of Wyatt Earp fame) and Bisbee (Lynn Bracken's hometown) and finally to Douglas.

Since I spent 5-years at ASU, I took the lead out of town, and kept a pretty decent pace, but these bikes being what they are, really couldn't get much over the speed limit, which outside of the cities in Arizona is 75 mph.  Also, these bikes being what they are, the mirrors leave a lot to be desired -- oh, sure you can see something behind you, but it seems especially at night what you get looks more like Dali work than a vehicle behind you -- from 50 yards you cannot tell whether that object is a 2 or 4 headlight car, or a single headlight motorcycle.

Thus, as we approached Tuscon and our course through the city in I-10, I began to get concerned that Curtis wasn't right on my tail, so I cut it back from 70-75 mph, to 60-65.  And cars kept passing me, and passing me, and passing me, and passing me - for many miles.  So finally, after this went on for 10s of miles, I decided to just pull over and wait for him to catch up and found a well lighted exit ramp at Exit 208.  And I waited, and waited, and waited and waited (a hundred cars must have passed me by).  I sent Curtis a terse email as to his whereabouts -- because if he went into a ditch or the median in the pitch black of the desert night, I, with my already poor vision, would never be able to see him.  Finally, with about 5 min. to go before I called 911, Curtis came up and pulled over.  He said that over 72 mph if he raised his head above his tank and windshield his bike would wobble/wallow uncontrollably - so he had to either lay down on the tank at speed, or slow down when sitting up.  We decided to let him take the lead for the next 25 miles, and we'd pull over and fill up.  Sure enough, I saw the phenomena - and it scared me.  We're pretty sure its a weight distribution issue in his pack and will get it corrected on Day 2.

The other issue to report is the marked temperature drop off in the desert outside the cities - with the Tuscon-Benson-Douglas leg probably being the worst.  Now, it was a reported 41 degrees in Douglas when we arrived, but I questioned what is the wind chill of 41 degree temperature at 70 mph.  Sure my toes and throttle hand were cold, but my core was fine, and it certainly is not enough to get either frostbite or hypothermia.  The rest of our riding is going to be in the daytime -- with the early morning hours likely the most chilly.  I suspect we'll be zipping in the fleece liners in the AM, and zipping them out by lunch everyday - except those days we're hugging the Sea of Cortez on the way to Mazatlan.

Hopefully, we'll have Internet access when we get to Creel tomorrow and have more to report regarding our journey into Mexico and across the Sonoran Desert.