(Frank) 7:00 am - It's windy! Right at our backs. 8^]
9:50 am - We are in Boron. We left Mojave about 8:30am. If you ever get the chance to ride out in the desert, on new pavement, on a cool day with 15-20mph tail winds... don't do it. Riding under those conditions could spoil your whole remaining ride. I'm not sure I want to go any further. I might just go back to Mojave and do this morning's ride again. On loaded touring bikes we covered 32.5 miles at an average speed of 21 mph. We are at the Borax museum and spent about 1.5 hours here.
(Later) Our destination for today was Barstow. We arrived at 1:15
covering the 72 miles at an average speed of 22 mph. The wind is still
building. We decided to take full advantage of this gift from God,
and ride another 60 miles to the town of Baker.
The ride to Barstow was great, but God made us pay for it on the ride to Baker. To start out Alan got his first flat. His tire lost a little air from two holes caused by those tiny steel wires that rub off of cars' worn-out radial tires. That caused a major pinch flat when he hit a bump. While he was repairing his flat I checked my tires. Darn, my rear tire was also going down. Alan ended up with two flats for the day and I had three. That's 10 flats in my first 750 miles!
In addition, about 20 miles from Baker a bolt holding my front
rack broke, and about 5 miles out my Klein bottom bracket slid out.
Once when Alan replaced his rear tire he also knocked off a rear brake
pad. This wasn't noticed until miles later when he hit the brakes.
We have a major climb and descent tomorrow so I made him a new pad
from a piece of old car tire. Hopefully it will work if we can't
find a real brake pad tomorrow.
(Alan) Riding 130 Miles through the Mojave desert in one day doesn't sound like a lot of fun until you realize the weather was relatively cool, the terrain was flat, and we had a 25 mph tail wind the whole way. Our average speed was 22.5 mph. I'm sure I had an under-5-hour century in there somewhere - my first.
One problem is that it sure is hard on the posterior - riding all day in your highest gear at 90 rpm doesn't give you any chance to stand and pedal out of the saddle. (I know, "Awww, poor baby. We should all have such problems.") Today was one of the few times I have regretted having such low gearing (48/13 top gear). I was spun out much of the day.