I keep feeling shocked (and slightly insecure) when I speak to other cyclists or read their blogs and hear about the kind of speeds people regularly achieve on a bike. Mark, my host in Yuma, mentioned that when he organizes group rides, the slowest group averages 15-20mph. I, by comparison, am a slowpoke. With this particular bike, with these particular tires, loaded with 50lbs worth of stuff, and me powering the whole apparatus, I average between 10-15mph depending on the conditions of the weather, the terrain, and my body.

So I knew if I were going to accomplish one of my goals for the trip, to ride my first century, I would need to start pretty early in the morning and keep up a decent pace. Doing the math showed me just how important speed would be to squeeze 106 miles into 9 hours of daylight with reasonable time for breaks along the way. The difference between the low and high ends of my average speed range would equate to more than 3.5 hours of riding (and daylight, for that matter), as demonstrated by the following chart:

10mph = 10.6 hours
11mph = 9.6 hours
12mph = 8.3 hours
13mph = 8.15 hours
14mph = 7.5 hours
15mph = 7 hours

I still hadn't fully recovered from the abuse I took up in the mountains, so I made sure to do lots of stretching and get to bed early the night before. I didn't sleep very well, as I was filled with the kind of nervous excitement you get when you have to be up early for something important, like an interview or a flight, and you worry that your alarm clock will malfunction.

In contrast to my traditional laissez-faire attitude, I had my day strictly regimented: up at 7:00, breakfast at 7:30, on the road by 8:30. I'd get a 10 minute break every 10 miles if I needed it, and a half hour break at the halfway point. The proprietor of my motel recommended the Best Western down the road for breakfast, which sounded boring but serviceable until I got there and found that it was all decked out in an exciting Space Age theme. A huge flying saucer sat atop the hotel's exterior, and I ate my Beligian waffle and bacon in a navy blue room decorated with beautiful space exploration themed murals. In the waitresses' service station, a green alien head housed silverware bundles.

I was well-fed, caffeinated, and on the road by 8:45, only 15 minutes behind schedule: not bad at all. I'd be taking I-8 most of the way, with an option of picking up Old Highway 80 which Elizabeth in Springerville had recommended as a particularly nice ride. I was a little nervous about riding on the interstate, both for safety and legality purposes, but it turns out it's legal for a bike to use the interstate as long as there is no other route. There was definitely no other route, at least not of the paved variety. My safety concerns were assuaged by a perfectly smooth and generous shoulder the width of a car lane, with rumble strips between me and the traffic.

I went FAST (by my standards), averaging 16 or 17 mph. Some of the more important muscles still felt sore, so I religiously stretched every 10 miles to stave off the pain. At the 30 mile mark I treated myself to a snack break at a depressing convenience store in the tiny town of Sentinel (school mascot: the Roadrunner, motto: "Small but proud") which featured a dirt-filled toilet outside the front door for cigarette butts. I quickly and efficiently selected an array of junk food to provide carbs, sugar, caffeine, and sodium: Sun Chips, Coke, and Skittles, wolfed them down, and climbed the on-ramp back onto the freeway. This ride was going to be a piece of cake.

I continued to make great time and arrived in Dateland, the halfway point, just before 1:00. There I used my special half hour break to enjoy a "world famous" date shake. Yes, Dateland is so named because it produced delicious dates, some of which are turned into very rich and exotic-tasting milkshakes with chewy chunks of date that get stuck in your straw. As I sipped that I milled about the little souvenir shop and found myself laughing at a series of postcards that made fun of fisherman, hunters, hillbillies, Arizona retirees, and the like. A few of my favorites:

• Two guys are in a fishing boat, one painting an X on the bottom of the boat. The caption reads, "Myron marks his favorite fishing spot."
• A guy driving an old flatbed truck, on which one guy is reclining in a La-Z-Boy and another is watching an old TV. Caption: "Hillbilly stretch limo."
• An old lady is out walking her Pekingese with a bow in its hair. Caption: "Trolling for mountain lions."

Leaving Dateland, I started feeling not only tired and sore despite the stretching routine, but a little daunted by the idea that I'd just ridden 50 miles, a perfectly satisfying day's ride, and still had another 50 miles ahead of me. In the same day. Without any sleep in between. But I had a goal. I pressed on.

At mile 64 I heard the disturbing whine of air shrilly escaping from a small opening, in this case a small opening in my back tire. Oh no. . . of all the days to get a flat! I pulled over and removed the wheel to investigate. There was a small tear in the tire along the edge of the bead where it mounts onto the wheel, so I assumed that to be the culprit. But strangely, when I examined the tube inside, I could not find any tears or punctures in that particular spot.

Just then a border patrol car pulled up. Its large, brawny-looking, pistol-packing occupant, Officer Ramos, came over to ask if I was okay. I said yes, that I was just changing a flat. He mentioned that he used to be into cycling, that he's a pretty good mechanic, and he's always willing to help "one of his fellow roadies." So I showed him the tear in my tire and how I was mystified that there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the tube.

Here I had been trying to be all intellectual about this, but Ramos, clearly more a man of action, deftly took the tire from me, pulled out the tube, pumped it up, located the puncture, drew a big X on it, handed it back to me saying, "OK, you patch that up." Obediently, I did so while he checked the tire, found a thorn, and removed it. As for the tear in the tire, we could temporarily fix that if I had a PowerBar wrapper. I unwrapped a granola bar and gave him the foil wrapper. I'd heard about this trick but have never actually had to do it. He cut off a small piece of foil with his Leatherman, and asked me to mount one side of the tire back onto the wheel.

I always wonder if having someone watch me makes me fumbly and inept, or if I'm always fumbly and inept but become more conscious of it when someone is watching. Anyway, Ramos wasn't about to stand around and watch someone fumble ineptly, so he took over. This was good, because he was much faster than I would have been at getting the tire back on, and didn't even curse at all, something I'd always thought was a fundamental part of the process. He then tucked the piece of granola bar wrapper between the torn tire and the tube. The foil would keep the tube from poking out, and prevent any foreign objects getting in. This makeshift patch would get me to Yuma but he advised me to get a new tire at a bike shop called Mr. B's once I arrived.

All seemed to be well, but when we put the wheel back on the bike, I discovered a new problem: the fender was rubbing against the tire. We tried shifting the wheel a bit, but nothing seemed to help. When I looked at the fender itself, one of the nuts that holds it on came off in my hand. After more fiddling with that, we realized that one of the rods that supports the fender had actually snapped off. There was not much we could do about that. But it occurred to me that Arizona is not exactly known for mud and rain: so why did I need fenders at all? I suggested we just remove it, and when I stopped at Mr. B's I could see if they had another rod sitting around and get them to reinstall it.

So Ramos kindly went to work removing all the bolts that hold the fender on while I played assistant, handing him allen wrenches and collecting the removed bolts. We then bungeed the disembodied fender on top of my sleeping bag and tent and I was finally ready to go. I thanked him for all his help and he zipped off in his border patrol car.

So I was up and running again, but this whole episode had cost me a good 45 minutes of daylight, a pretty significant monkey wrench in my carefully timed plan. At that point, it was almost certain I'd be getting in to Mark and Faye's place after dark. There was still that mountain ahead which was going to slow me down. Ramos had mentioned I'd have a 2 or 3 mile climb which might take as much as half an hour depending on the grade.

I probably should have stuck to the Interstate, since it had treated me well thus far, but when I got to the exit for Old Highway 80 I decided to take a little break from the traffic. It paralleled I-8 for 40 miles or so and was, as Elizabeth had promised, a beautiful bike ride. down a quiet, lonely desert road that made me feel like I was the only person in the world. The trucks on I-8 looked and sounded small and far away like distant memory, dwarfing in comparison to the mountains that rose abruptly alongside the road.

However, Old 80 had two problems for someone trying to complete a century in a limited time frame. First, it was not so well paved. While I would not normally care too much about being slowed down a little, and would gladly have traded speed for desert solitude, today it was going to be an issue especially since I'd already lost time with my minor breakdown. Second, the desert scenery along this road was just too tempting. I wanted SO badly to stop, hike around, take pictures, maybe even find a nice little secluded camping spot amoung the mountains and just kick back for the rest of the day. I did allow myself one quick jog (a hike would have been too slow) up a hill to get a better look at the mountains and a few photos. But time was of the essence, so I got back on I-8 at my next opportunity.

By the time I hit the 85 mile mark, my ride had devolved into a joyless exercise. The sun had set, leaving only a fading glow to illuminate the road. I'd long since stopped taking stretch breaks in the interest of time, so my hips and knees were hurting again. As I pedaled for all I was worth, I counted down mile markers the way someone who hates their job watches the clock, desperate to cover as much ground as I could while I could still see.

I think I've mentioned in the past that my terrible substitute for a proper headlight is a tiny camping headlamp that (poorly) illuminates the road about 5 feet in front of me. But I developed a useful trick once it got dark: I would use the headlights of passing cars to view the road ahead, mentally note any obstacles like rocks or branches as they passed, then hold that information in my short-term memory as I blindly rode down the shoulder. A string of cars together would occasionally illuminate the road consitently for 30 seconds or so, enabling me to pick up a little speed, but generally the darkness forced me to ride extra slowly and carefully. To complicate matters, a truck had dropped a bunch of bok choy along the road, so I kept encountering dark oblongs on the road that kept me guessing: rock or cabbage?

Yes, I thought of calling Mark and Faye, at the very least to let them know I was still alive, but as usual I had no cell phone reception. In any case, I had come this far: I was going to complete the hundred miles if it killed me, and by then it seemed like there was a pretty good chance it would.

I was relieved to slow down even more for the climb up the mountain. The mountain meant I was almost there, and finally I could relax a little and start breathing again. It was kind of wonderful and peaceful in a way to be riding up a mountain pass under a shroud of darkness. You can't see the grade, or the curve of the road ahead, or any other indication of what your future might hold, so you are forced to exist entirely and absolutely in the present moment, to embrace all of it: burning quads, black craggy silhouettes, stars popping out in full glory against a moonless sky, the comfort of a wide shoulder as tractor trailor lights fly past in the dark.

Eventually I saw a spot on the horizon where the taillights disappeared and I knew I was coming to the end of the climb. The last few miles would be all downhill to Mark and Faye's place. When I reached the top, I stopped and sat on a guardrail to look at the stars and savor this unlikely but lovely moment. When would I be on the interstate in Arizona in the dark on a bike again? Maybe never. I shone my headlamp in my odometer. I had JUST cleared the hundred mile mark.

Once over the mountain the lights of Yuma spread out before me like a sparkly carpet as I started descending into the Fortuna Foothills. I cared much more about arriving safely than quickly so I squeezed the brakes and went down the mountain almost as slowly as I'd climbed it. I was excited to finally reach Mark and Faye's exit and complete the last couple of (well-lit!) miles to their place. I'd been on the road for almost 11 hours, and in the saddle for just under 8 hours.

When I arrived, Mark and Faye gave me a big high five to congratulate me on my first century (they are both avid cyclists) and lost no time connecting me with a cold beverage and a hot hot tub. I could not quite believe the luxurious accommodations they provided me, and the good fortune I have in meeting two such extraordinary and inspiring people. More on them soon!