L8 - 51.198km - Quartzsite, AZ to Hope, AZ

Day by day the rides have begun to be a little easier. Sure, the ride itself will never be easy, but the recovery is quicker. The legs feel a whole lot fresher the next day than they did a few weeks ago. Getting out of the two hour rides has been a drawback to my recent past. I think getting a solid two hour ride in helps clear the mind and body of the unnecessary and puts into place more of the important. Let me not get to much into philosophy, which is not my specialty. Quartzsite, AZ is a barren desert landscape that goes on for miles and miles. It is hot. I would believe that Hope, AZ is not much different. I will get back to finishing this post tomorrow morning.

L7 - 50.295km - Ripley, CA to Quartzsite, AZ

Hot, dusty deserts keep life to a minimum in this area of the United States. From the news, I have read that the temperatures in this area are hovering in the upper 110+ degrees F! Could you imagine riding in those temperatures? The heat reflecting off of the aspault or concrete would probably be able to cook your bicycle tires, and your water bottle would turn into a hot water kettle that starts to whistle with boiling water at 9:30AM as you ride. From my web searches, numerous pictures show a desert landscape with lots of RVs. Who in their right mind these days would pay for gasoline to drive an RV around the southwest US? Sure, the Baby Boomers have some money, but paying for gas should not be on a priority as they enter retirement. But beyond that, this ride has a nice little climb over 1,000 feet around the California and Arizona border. Then again the climb takes about 15 km to complete, so I am not really worried about having a huge 10+ percent grade for 10+ km. From what I have been told, no major roads in the United States have road grades over 6 percent. Local roads on the other hand may have grades past 10 percent. I have ridden a few in Utah. Yawn. So, riding like this reminds me when I was in college and routinely rode about 2 hours every day. I am liking this. I feel tired when it is time to go to sleep. I feel better. Why not exercise?

L6 - 67.12km - Glamis, CA to Ripley, CA

Well, this is great. I had another IRQ problem when saving my results, so I do not have any of those other than I finished it in about 1 hr 50 minutes. The ride was long for a weekday ride, but good nonetheless.

L5 - 54.996km Brawley, CA to Glamis, CA

Here is a wonderful little picture of Brawley, CA. This is the start point on today's ride of the RAAM 2008 route. In my data crash experience, I only lost the end of May and all of the rider files from June. So, as with all computer hard drive crashes, back up as often as possible. Either way, I am back on the bike. I revamped my living arrangements to allow for better access to fans, sight to the TV and computer, and fixing a headphone cord issue. I think I have a pretty good setup compared to other people's set ups for Computrainers. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. This ride was not as bad as the other ride into Lake Henshaw. The road had some better grades near Glamis, CA, but it was nothing too hard to tackle. In some ways, I think that riding a RAAM on a computrainer will be much more difficult than it is in the normal sense of riding. For example, on this picture, you see a rather flat section of rode. You could pedal for a few seconds and then stop pedaling and coast for a few seconds. But on the computrainer, there is no stopping. When you stop, the wheel stops rather quickly. So, to maintain your momentum and movement forward, your legs have to turn over. Now, I do realize that riding the RAAM in actuality means a 6-9 day ride if you are using the group format. But even then, you are not riding 10 hours a day. Well, if you were on a 4 man team, you probably would. But in the future, I hope to complete a RAAM with an 8 person team. Well, I need to enjoy another night of rest.

Yes, here is a picture east of Glamis, CA. Very quite, sandy, and HOT!

Ouch Ouch

My laptop died yesterday night. It was not pretty because I did not have a complete backup of my RacerMate files. I will keep this updated.

RAAM Segment 2 - Pauma Valley to Lake Henshaw - 37.592km

The DeLorme topo software for the computrainer arrived today around 2PM. I have just begun to play with the software in course creation, but I have used DeLorme products and have used this same version of the software. How I love remembering things! So, I created the Pauma Valley, CA to Lake Henshaw, CA. Here is a little map for your enjoyment. Look at that profile map. It looks like you ride uphill for a bit, and the rollers then pick up after you reach the top. I also have a picture of the area around Lake Henshaw, CA. The lake looks a little tranquil, but it should because it is really in the middle of nowhere. If you look at the map, the lake appears to be in no man's land of the mountains and the dry Californian desert. Doesn't it make you thirsty just looking at the picture? Maybe you might want to bask in the sun on the beach of the lake. But maybe you want to get eaten by bugs and other lake insects. Does anyone see anything resembling a white sand beach or do we only have green-brown mud on the shore?- Loading up the course



Post ride report. Wow. Forget about the picture of Lake Henshaw looking beautiful because the road is horrible! Wow. To get up to the lake, the road has some very serious grades. I love climbing hills and mountains, but I either am out of shape when it comes to climbing and/or I need to turn on the smoothing feature in the DeLorme software. Road grades do not change as quickly as the course was doing. You do not go from 1%to 15% in about 5 seconds. So, I will deal with that before the next segment. Either way, it was a tough ride. Towards the end, the good ole' quadraceps muscles were shouting that they were nearing the end of their available power. In reviewing the profile, this section of course was basically a category 1 climb found in a major tour such as the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, or Vuealta de Espana. Ouch. But it is all good!

A non-RAAM ride today

In my little quest to ride across America using the same general course as the true RAAM, I need to use topo software made by DeLorme and co-developed with Racermate to add all of the good elevation changes, turns, descents, and other general road features. Supposedly, this software will arrive tomorrow thanks to UPS. Then, I will take up the course again. Today, I was a little tired. I have changed my level of intensity over the past month and a half. I rode under my anaerobic threshold for that period of time. Sure, the benefits abound when you don't feel tired from the previous day's ride. But I think there are some drawbacks wherein you lose the same type of power and just feeling as you ride. I have made adjustments to my pedals as well. Speedplay pedals and cleats wear out. Period. End of story. In the past year, two sets of Zero CroMo pedals ended up on eBay because they started to wear. So, to offset the high costs of replacement of cleats (which wear out quickly as well), Shimano pedals, the Ultegra RD-6620 series pedal, became my main pedal. I hope to use these pedals a long time. To make the personal decision to stay with the pedals, cleats were on sale for $12.00, and I picked up 4 extra sets. First thing, let me say these pedals ROCK! Sure, the adjustments are still being made to compare with the position of the Speedplay pedals, but I feel secure in how my foot and shoe grip the pedal. Lateral movement or a rocking moment is nil. Speedplay pedals made this feature an unheadlined negative. Who cares about cornering when you are riding on a CompuTrainer when it is 95degrees F and 100% humid outside? Not, I. Once the UPS man arrives, I will install the software and get the courses made. Enjoy riding my friends.