I arrive in Flagstaff with serious business to attend to. My trusty bike has taken a beating over the last five months and my lower gears, despite some maintenance work at the Canyon, are no longer functioning. The chain won’t stay on the smallest ring under any kind of load. Luckily, I have been set […]
Also tagged bike, hospitality, ordinary angels, people, usaThe road to Flagstaff winds over 70 miles first through the forest, then across the plains, and finally over a mountain or two. Despite the maps and compass, I get a little lost but it’s a very pleasant two day ride. Once the sun goes down everything freezes instantly. My drinking water is solid ice […]
Also tagged desert, snow and ice, usa, winterThe temperature plummets during the night and I wake to icy rain. I cook breakfast under the inadequate shelter of my fly and pack my wet things onto the bike. The road surface on the last ten miles to the highway is good and so I am soonback on tarmac with only fifteen miles to […]
Also tagged a place to stay, canyon country, friends, ordinary angels, usaAt dawn I wake and set off across the plains. There is nothing to suggest that the Grand Canyon lies barely a mile to the north of where I ride. I spend the day struggling over rocky ranch tracks with nothing else to do but admire the sky. An inland sky is totally different to […]
Also tagged canyon country, usaPeach Springs is one of those names on the map that appeal to me, somehow evoking images of eternal summer evenings in a pretty bucolic town – all green fields and orchards. Darkness falls as I approach the town and I make a fairly dismal camp alongside the highway behind an embankment; mostly out of […]
Also tagged canyon country, desert, first nation, usaFully recuperated by a much needed day of rest at the Needles Inn, I set off again following the historical Route 66 north-east from Needles into Arizona, crossing the Black Mountains over the Sitgraves Pass. Route 66 clearly occupies a significant place in the US collective cultural imagination. Groups of stone-faced men, sometimes with an […]
Also tagged desert, mountains, route 66, usa