This morning, Scotty and I set out on a 77 mile ride from Downtown Phoenix, through Laveen, Gila River Indian Community, Sun Lakes, Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe and BACK to Phoenix. We set out around 8 am and headed Southwest toward Estrella Mountain. Our ride took us down Central Avenue and eventually West on Baseline to 51st Avenue. I hadn't had any breakfast, so we stopped at Starbucks in Laveen and continued on toward the reservation.
The ride down 51st Avenue took us through the pass between the foothills of South Mountain and Estrella Mountain. We saw (dead) snakes, ground squirrels, a coyote... And got chased by domesticated dogs. Picture this: Scotty and I are riding along into headwinds and at a slight incline when we hear this screaming to our left, which we came to find was the owner of two BIG dogs... That were headed right for us. I've never seen Scotty ride so fast. According to my Garmin GPS computer, we went from about 15/16 mph to 25 mph pretty suddenly around that point on the route. The dogs were pretty fast, but no match for us, and quickly gave up.
The Southern side of South Mountain
The ride through the reservation was a little disorienting as 51st Avenue begins to turn to the Southeast. It felt like we were still riding due South and putting ourselves farther away from more densely populated areas. Once we were back on straight course to the East, we could see signs of life on the horizon. We stopped at the first one - a convenience store right along Interstate 10 - to fill up on water and Powerade. We took a little break, talked with some of the locals, and then continued through Sun Lakes and toward Chandler.
Our route took us north along Arizona Avenue through Downtown Chandler... Past the San Tan Brewery, where I would have LOVED to take another break if we didn't have another 40 or so miles to ride home. We eventually started our ride back East through some awful head winds and stopped at Wildflower Bread Co. for lunch. DELICIOUS!
Back on the road and back into the wind, we headed toward Tempe and the ASU campus, passing along the Eastern edge of campus along Rural Road. We completed one partial lap around Tempe Town Lake. The northern stretch was PAINFUL. Strong headwinds out of the East kept our speeds between 12-15 mph. When we turned onto the Southern bank, we quickly picked up to around 23 mph before slowing through Tempe Beach Park for a short break and crossing the lake over Mill Avenue. The ride back along Washington Street into Downtown Phoenix was tough - the headwinds were incredibly strong. Wind advisories be damned... We had two weekends left to train and needed to get the ride in. And ALC doesn't stop for wind, so neither should training!
We made it home alive. It was a good ride!
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