Day 9: To the Grand Canyon
Above was our first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. We biked from Seligman to just outside the park entrance. Overall, the ride today was not pleasant due to road conditions.
The day started relatively cool at around 46 degrees at sunrise. Here was the view from across US 66 from our hotel.
Breakfast was at the Roadkill Cafe where we had eaten dinner the previous night. Their motto is "You kill it, we grill it!" They did an impressive job of getting out over 30 individual breakfast orders remarkably quickly.
Our first 18 miles of riding were on US Route 66 which continues to be quite scenic.
I spotted this tarantula crossing the road.
Unfortunately, at the 18 mile mark, we needed to merge onto Interstate 40 for 22 miles. The good news is that there were very wide shoulders for us to ride on. The bad news is that the shoulders were rough and covered in debris. In the picture above, it is easy to see how much smoother the road is compared with the shoulder. Over a long ride, the vibrations from the road lead to numb hands and sore posteriors. As for the debris, when truck tires disintegrate, small bits of the thin steel wire in the belt scatter along the shoulder which lead to punctures. My first flat of the day came on the highway from a half inch wire segment.
Shortly after we got off I-40, we turned onto AZ 64 and began riding north for 50 miles to just before the entrance to the Grand Canyon. For the first time since the beginning of our trip, we actually saw pine trees. Unfortunately, we could rarely look at the scenery since we were biking on a highly trafficked 55 mph road (but often driven faster) with narrow shoulders whose surfaces were terrible. I picked up my second flat of the day, helped two other riders fix flats, and passed by at least six other riders with flats who did not need any assistance. Sometimes buses would pass by only a couple of feet away. The air wake they pushed aside could shove your bike 6 inches off line. Everyone of us agreed that the biking required tremendous focus to be constantly picking a line through the shoulder debris, gravel, and large cracks all while keeping close track of all of the vehicles constantly streaming by. We were all very glad to be done with today's ride. Hopefully, there will be comparatively few days on the trip with road conditions like these.