Jeremy's Bike Blog

I woke up, got up, coffee’d up, showered up, and packed up.  I said goodbye to Manfred, a lumbering and somewhat strange German guy who had been nursing a debilitating leg cramp by laying prostrate in the recliner in the Cowboy Bunkhouse library for the duration of my time in Kanab, along with Joanne and Jeff, the owners.

I then went to Mozzy’s pizza for a much anticipated, $6 all you can eat pizza and salad buffet.  I was customer #1 showing up shortly after their opening at 11am, but by the time I left at noon the place was quite busy.  Next I stopped at the grocery and stocked up on Clif bars.  They were on special for only $1 each, standard TJ’s price, whereas in many rural areas they go for anywhere from $1.69 to $2 each.  When you can put away as many of those things as I do of late, it really adds up.

Then I pedaled out of town.  There was a very slight incline leading to a “summit” of 5690 feet, but more impactfully, there was a steady tailwind.  I actually traveled Eastward and until the end of the day somewhat Northward, to basically get around the Grand Canyon, which was the opposite of my overall Southward and Westward trajectory.  Particularly on the Northeastward leg of the day’s route, but generally throughout the day, I had a true, or very close to true tailwind that whisked me along.  I would gauge the speed of the wind by noting my spedometer at the point when my un-buttoned button-up shirt would lay flat against me as if I was in no wind whatsoever, and this varied from 20 to 30mph throughout the day.  With such a fantastically vigorous tailwind, I pedaled a relatively low-effort 75 miles in 5 and a half hours.  I gotta say, tailwinds are pretty great.  One of these tours I should factor prevailing wind direction into my itinerary.

As a bonus, I roadside-scored some “Choppers” brand shades, and a bundle of zip-ties.  Only 2 of the zip-ties were usable, but that was enough of a surplus to try my idea of using them to effectively decrease the depth of the traps on my pedals, something I’ve been wanting in order to get the pedal axle closer to the ball of my foot, rather than to the arch.  Turning around to retrieve these prizes gave me a thorough appreciation of the difference between biking with vs. against a 20-30mph wind.

I stopped into a BLM information center to vet the account of camping on land in Navajo nation that Kirsten relayed to me the day before: a friend of hers apparently had to double back after biking some substantial ways into the reservation after someone within questioned him about where he planned to stay that night.  According to the woman in the info center, permits to camp within the nation may be obtained at the Navajo Visitor’s Office in the town of Page.  Alternatively, it’s about 85 miles from one end to the other.

Riding away, the sensation of getting up to the speed of the wind is akin enough to stepping out of the wind into the stillness of the interior of a car, that I caught myself thinking “oh, we’re moving, so it’s time to buckle my seat belt”.

More largely effortless miles as I crossed the Utah/Arizona border and rolled up on Glen Canyon Dam.   There was a popular turn-off to an NPS administered campground and boat launch on Lake Powell, so I went to check it out.  The ranger at the gate told me it would be $12 for the entry, and some unknown additional amount to camp at the private, 3rd party administered campground within.  I thanked her but declined then went back to the main road and checked out the dam.   The dam was huge.  Check out my photospheres yo!

Page was a few miles further and with the time change setting the clock back an hour (AZ doesn’t do the daylight savings nonsense, so they’re currently on Mountain Standard Time), I nearly made it before the visitor center closed.  Nearly, but not quite.

There was a campground in Page, just down the hill on which the town center sits, and when they didn’t answer the phone when I called, I made the the mile trip and a small descent to check it out in person.  The sign said there was no vacancy, but really, I needed all of 25 square feet of ground for me and my bike, so asked at the front desk if there wasn’t somewhere I could squeeze in.  They said sorry, but no, so I thanked them, left the office, and cruised the grounds with a mind towards finding some campers that might be interested in my company.  There were surprisingly few people actually outside at any of the RV sites, and none of them looked particularly eager for company.  There were no signs of other bike tourists and nobody sitting outside at any of the tent sites.  So I determined me staying at that campground was not meant to be, and headed a little further out of town.  I found a paved road that seemed defunct based on the bulldozed dune of sand shortly past where it branched from the actual rode I was on, and took that to a dirtbike track, and then took that to a nice, flat, and inconspicuous little impromptu campsite.

I’m composing this post from that very place, having gotten my air pad and sleeping bag out.  I can’t be bothered use the bivvy tonight.  It’s warm and dry here.  I seem to have working cellular data, so I’m going to try and post this from here now.  I also think that I might actually already be in Navajo nation, though it’s hard to tell based on available maps.