Cow Spokes Tour 2008

Alaska to Mexico

June 20-October 18

We made it!

We are excited to say that, after spending 79 days in the saddle and cycling 5235 miles of the North American continent, we have concluded our 2008 charity ride to benefit Heifer International. We are very proud to be at the top of the list of their fundraising groups, and we are commited to continuing fundraising to meet our goal of $20,000.

Please click here to donate to Heifer International. It’s not to late!

We would like to extend deep felt and sincere thanks to all the wonderful and generous people who have donated to Heifer International through our site, the kind people who have housed us and helped us along the way, our parents for their emotional and financial support, Westhill bike shop, Veltec, The Putney School, Ibex, and DJW Technology for their sponsorship, Nate Marsh and Emily Roose for tech support, and finally Heifer International for all their great work throughout the world. This has been an incredible journey and we will never forget it.

We left Flagstaff and headed southeast towards the towns of Happy Jack and Strawberry. Really, with names like those, how could we not go there? In Flagstaff, we’d looked at a map of the state that listed elevations for various towns. Flagstaff is at 7000 feet and as we plotted a course towards Tucson the numbers dropped slowly down to 2000. It was going to be a pleasant four days. Based on the elevations of the towns on our route, we unrealisticly anticipated a long, leisurely 280 mile descent. We were mistaken. Every day we climbed. Yeah, we descended in the end and did lose elevation, but each day had long climbs, 10 miles or longer, that nobody had mentioned. Ah well.

As we passed by Roosevelt Reservoir, we ran into two cyclists that we first met in Montana and then saw again in Yellowstone. They were a French couple who planned to spend the next two years biking from Vancouver to Argentina. It’s a small world and there are only so many roads and routes that get you from Canada to Mexico. It was nice to see them again and hear about their travels.

Friday night was our final night camping out. We had climbed an epic mountian, descending 7 miles and a 7% grade through winding canyons. We camped right on a river (rare in the desert) and had a bright moon. Sleeping in tents is fun and all, and it is certainly possible to travel around this country without paying to camp in a campground, but it was exciting to think about sleeping indoors. In Wyoming and Utah we were able to sleep on our ground clothes without using our tents. In southern Arizona, however, there are scorpions, rattlesnakes, and tarantulas. A thin sheet of nylon won’t do much against a bear or moose, but it is enough to keep very large spiders from crawling on your face. Good enough for us.

We rolled into Tucson on Saturday after a morning that consisted of climbing 13 miles up into the wind and an afternoon that consisted of gliding pleasantly downhill for 25 miles in the warm sun while a rain storm passed off to the southeast. Lovely,

We took Sunday off and then headed for the border Monday morning. We’ve had remarkable luck with our bicycles this trip. Aside from early trouble with fenders and two bum rear rims, the only other trouble has been four flat tires and only three of those were puncture flats. So it figures that 60 miles from the end of the trip, I would roll over a piece of glass and need to change a tire. It was the end of the trip and a pleasant sunny day, so it wasn’t really a hassle but rather a chance to reflect on the trip. Nice, in a strange way.

We turned south on to 286 and rode through a beautiful valley. The only traffic on the road was Border Patrol trucks racing back and forth. It was a nice way to end the trip. We reached the border, rode around Sasabe, Sonora for a while, and then came back into the United States.

Along the road to the border

A sign pointing to Mexico (clearly)

In the streets of Sasabe, Sonora

Back in the United States

We’d made it. 5235 miles after leaving Anchorage, we had arrived, and suddenly it was over.

We rode back to the Seirra Vista ranch a few miles from the border and stayed the night with our friends Troy and Melissa. We sat in their hot tub and spent much of the next day napping on their lawn. A wonderful end to a wonderful trip.

Troy, Melissa, and the sacred mountain, Baboquivari.

Some reflective thoughts from Tim and Noah…

Tim: It’s odd that it’s all over. Though I’m looking forward to sleeping in a bed and taking a shower whenever I want to and seeing friends and family and returning to a normal life, I will miss this life style. More than I probably realize right now. It’s been great. Tomorrow morning Noah will fly home to Vermont and tomorrow night I’ll take a train to California. New adventures await. Tune in next week to read about my ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco. While I’m ready for a change of pace, I’m going to settle for a change of direction. I’ve had enough riding south. I’m going to try going north for a while.

Take care, Tim.

Noah:

Well, this was certinly the trip of a lifetime. It is amazing to look back on it, and think about what can be accomplished with time and focus. That is really what this trip was an excercise in: getting up each day and tackling the task at hand without getting overwhelmed by the enormity of the whole. Even on the last day, you can’t help but think “I am really going to bike 70 miles, with all this stuff?” Just day after day, packing the stuff, making the miles, trying not to get bogged down in the tough times, trying not to take the good times for granted. Each night, trusting that we would find a place to sleep, each morning, hoping that we would find a spot with hot coffee.

I am not going to lie and say that at times this trip wasn’t hard, but really, that was what it was about. I knew from the outset that Tim was the right partner for this ride, because I knew that he would be ready each day to get up and ride, to make the miles, to keep going even when things were at the worst. He would keep me going through his refusal to quit, and, as I thought, he did.

Looking forward to returning home to my life, to my house, to my truck, is a funny thing. After living out of a few small bags on the side of the road for so long, I am not sure how I will feel when faced with all the stuff that I was so distratracted with before we left. I’m sure in time that things will settle and feel normal again, but it will take some time. I know that I won’t appreciate the full value and meaning of this trip in my life for some time, that is a given, but all I can really say is that it has been amazing and wonderful.

I want to thank my parents for supporting me in everything, Pete and Margie for giving me a push out the door, the folks at Westhill for helping us get our act togeather, Sam for taking a chance with us, my wonderful lady Helen for her patience, all the generous and kind souls who have taken us in out of the rain and given us a place to stay and fresh motovation, and each and every vehicle that pulled into the passing lane for us (I always noticed.)

Special thanks to all of you that donated money to Heifer International. It is an awesome organization, and we are thrilled that you all have taken this opportunity to help so many people.

And, most of all, thanks to Tim, for being a great friend and riding partner, and having deep and unending patience with me and my eccentricities. It takes a special person to keep his cool while I was threatining to kick the spokes out of my bike wheel in the Yukon. Thanks Tim, now come back to Putney and help me put up some fence, dammit.

Noah

Mileage is a funny thing.  We look at the map pretty regularly.  Once a week or so, we’ll add up all the numbers and see what stands between here and there.  And here’s the thing: The numbers change.  They shouldn’t but they do.  When we were in Moab, Noah was buying his ticket home so we needed to know when we’d be finished.  Sit down with the map, add up some numbers, come up with 950ish (for some roads distances aren’t given).  Okay, let’s call it 1000.  That’s two and a half weeks of riding.  This was towards the end of September and we’ll probably want to take a day off somewhere along the way.  Three and a half weeks will be more than enough.  Buy the ticket and ease into the last part of the trip without the stress that usually comes with needing to be somewhere at a certain time.  Five days later, we sat down with the maps again.  850 miles to go.  Wait we spent five days cycling and had only done 100 miles?  That’s not right.  Is it? Are we going to make it?  Okay, let’s go to the Grand Canyon and then figure this out.  We see the canyon (more about this in a bit) and then head to Flagstaff.  Crunch the numbers a third time and now it’s 420.  That’s all.  280 to Tucson (four days of riding) and then 140 for the two day trip to the border and back.  That’s it?  Really?  What are we going to do with the extra time?  We went from not enough time to too much time without leaving the couch.  Ah well.

Since we left Moab, we’ve a winding route through southern Utah.  South to Blanding.  West to Lake Powell.  Across the lake on a ferry.  North through Capital Reef National Park on a sandy dirt rode.  West and up, up, up on an old cattle route to Boulder (UT, not CO).  South past Bryce National Park.  Into Arizona (goodbye Utah!).  Up, over, and down the Kaibab Plateau. Down into Marble Canyon.

That was the route and it went pretty smoothly.  A lot of ups and downs.  The nights above 7000 feet were cold.  The night below 4000 feet were hot.  Elevation matters.

The descent from the Kaibab Plateau was wonderful.  We spent the morning climbing 3000 feet over the course of 15 miles.  This climb wasn’t marked on any of our maps, so it was a bit of a surprise.  At the top of the climb is scenic Jacob Lake, which is little more than a lodge and a gas station next to a small pond/mud puddle.  (It’s tough to have a lake at 8000 feet in the desert and Jacob Mud Puddle wouldn’t have sounded as majestic.)  And then we got to go down.  A lot.  We lost 2000 feet over the next 10 miles and then another 2000 feet over the next 35 miles.  It would have been nice if we weren’t able to look far across the plain and see that we’d be climbing up out of the valley the next day.  Ah well.

The first half of the next day was up; the second have was down.  It was all into the wind and all with a narrow shoulder that was dominated by the rumble strip.  Not a wonderful day.  But it brought us to Cameron, so that’s something.  No, actually, it’s not.  Cameron was full of stray dogs that barked all night so, although the campground was free, neither of us got any sleep.  It’s odd to get into your sleeping bag when the sun goes down, get out of your sleeping bag when the sun comes up 13 hours later, and still be tired.

The next day we headed towards the Grand Canyon.  The park entrance is 30 miles west of Cameron and in those 20 miles we gained 3000 feet.  (It’s the same 3000 feet.  Up and down and up and down.)  Halfway up the hill the rain and wind started.  We pulled over to the side of the road and huddled in the lee of a jewelry stand.  Eventually the rain stopped and we were able to bike high enough into the trees that the wind wasn’t a factor any more.  At the end of the climb, though, we were at the Grand Canyon.  It’s tough to remain angry at the weather when you’re looking over spectacular views.

The next day, we headed to Flagstaff and stayed with the friend of some guy we met in a coffee shop in Utah.  An odd connection, but it’s been awesome to take some time to relax.  They’re all big bike guys, so we’ve been talking shop and trading stories.

After putting up with my rambling thoughts, you all deserve some pictures, so here you go:

Noah plots a course across Lake Powell

The descent off Kaibab

Our first view of the Grand Canyon

Tim and Noah look at a majestic hole in the ground

The garage of the guys we stayed with in Flagstaff.  How many bikes can you see? (Hint: it’s more than 10)

Now we’re off to the grocery store and then heading south to Strawberry, AZ and on to Mexico.