Rockie Roads

Sorry we have not written much since Sunday, but we have been climbing hills for three days. We left Blythe Monday morning after a 90 mile ride the day before.

Immediately upon entering Arizona we began climbing. Heidi Straub (and I apologize for not remembering her married name) told me several years ago that the Rockies were easier to climb than the Appalachians. And the truth is that the roads are pretty well graded. That does not mean that they are easy. Indeed you climb long, but mostly reasonable grades all day.

So Monday we went from Blythe to Salome AZ. This is just a spot where things have gathered, and there was a real 1930's era road house motel. Dave and I each had a room so we ended up actually spending more than unusal for less quality. But it had been a long day of climbing, so we took our rest. There were three climbs to get there and Dave was plagued with flats. So we were glad to get to even a lower quality place that had a bed.

The next day we set out for Congress. more climbs and then a flat hit me. Congress is actually in a better location and clear has pretensions to be a town. You can tell by the big green road signs. Nice little motel, the Sierra Vista, smallest in AZ with 4 rooms.

Then came yesterday. An 1800 foot climb to Yarnell AZ up a long winding road. There was really nothing else between Yarnell and Prescott and no place to stay so we pressed on to climb the second climb at the Quartz Mountains that took us to 6100 feet.

More flats and a very tough second climb left us really tuckered out when we finally got to the final final summit. There were a group of men there who asked what we were doing and offered us very cold water. Great Road Angels.

Finally zoomed down into Prescott in order to get to a bike store, we checked in and walked across the street to the store but it closed at 5:30 pm! Who closes at 5:30?

So we are having a rest half day, doing some laundry, resupplying our inner tubes and will just take a short ride. Despite conquering these two hill we were still exhausted. Both of us noted the altitude effects as well.

I am adding pictures to the site with the mapping. I will get some here too, but go to our site where the gps logs are displayed and you can see the scenery right with the ride!