Day 10 - Tuesday, March 18

Tempe, AZ to Globe, AZ  - 83 miles - 555 miles total. 

The first 40 miles were relatively easy; once we got out of Tempe and then Mesa, the road was flat with some interesting vistas. Then came the hills. 

Thank you Shawn for Drills and Hills, and Rhonda for Spin to Win. I rocked the hills! Stopped worrying about what everyone else was doing, put my head down, found a comfortable cadence in a comfortable gear, and climbed. Six miles at five percent, followed by a decline into Superior, AZ, then   eight miles up at eight percent,  a steep downhill, another climb, and finally a two-mile runout to Miami, a decrepit copper mining town, followed shortly by Claypool, and finally Globe.

We started at 1200 feet, climbed up and over 4800, and are now at 3700. 

And it's cold! So much for the desert heat, now nothing more than a fond memory. Tights, fleece, merino wool. But my sleeping bag is warm, and the buff from the indoor granfondo keeps my head toasty, so all is relatively good. Three more days in the mountains, and then we head back down to warmer climes. 

The climb out of Superior was spectacular, and at times a bit scary. We had to cycle through a tunnel, similar to those on the Trans Canada near Revelstoke.   Short and straight, but no shoulder and two lanes uphill. A bit nerve wracking. I was shepherding John H through the tunnel, when suddenly during a brief lull in traffic he let out a loud yell to test the echo. It was so unexpected, I almost fell off my bike!

Sections of the climb had no shoulder, in other spots it was wonderful. All part of the great adventure.