A guy I used to know was always saying, " Life is pain, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something." It wasn't original thinking, I think he was quoting a film or a book, but there's some truth in it I believe.
Some days are more painful than others.
I had a terrible night's sleep on Friday night. The cold gusty wind woke me up all night long. New winds bring can herald changes in the weather. The ranch was on a flood plain and I was aware it would not be a good place to have a repeat of last week's storms.
Finally saturday morning came, I hadn't rained and I hadn't been trampled by angry cattle. I did not want to get up at all. It is cold in the desert first thing in the morning this time of year. Between freezing and 5 degrees C. Plus it was still windy, cold and windy. Rubbish.
"I hope it's not a head wind" I thought, stretching out my aching legs inside the sleeping bag.
I usually wake up when it gets light and start moving when the sun comes above the horizon about 1/2 an hour later. It's stays cold until the sun is well up in the sky, about 1 1/2 hours after you first see it.
I have a routine: I put on the down jacket I've been using as a pillow; wind up the radio; make tea and porridge; answer the call of nature; pack up the bed and change into my cold weather cycling clothes - thermals, fleece, wind proof, wooly hat under helmet.
Then it's time to load the bike and get moving. At 8am it's still too cold to wear these few clothes.
An hour after setting off the sun has usually done it's job and it's time to shed the thermals, hat and fleece for the day.
However this Saturday the sky a blanket of cloud and the sun was nowhere to be seen. To add insult to injury the icy wind that woke me up all night long was now blowing diagonally into my face, chilling my extermities.
So it continued, as I rode my hands went numb, my feet went numb, my cheeks went numb- painfully numb. The cold ate into my knees through the thin leggings. It was miserable, thouroughly miserable.
You might think the action of cycling warms you up? It would do but for the wind chill. Even on a still day a cyclist generates his own air conditioning by travelling unaturally fast through the atmosphere. On the hot days I often notice at my lunch stop that it's far hotter than it seems as I glide along at 15mph. Sometimes I take off a layer when I stop. Trouble is on a cold day you can't turn the air-con off.
It was a 60 mile day from Hope to Wickenburg, gently uphill into the wind all morning and most of the afternoon. From mile 8 to mile 36 the road was straight and empty.
Cold, hard and boring. No turns in the road, no changes in scenery, not even a sign to tell you how many miles you've done. I started to dream of Aguila, the town at mile 36. I had read of a place called Mama's Cafe which proudly proclaimed home cooking and bikers welcome.
The little milestones are what get me through. When my knees are screaming at me to stop or I'm are having to alternate which hand to hold the bars with so the tingling can subside in the other one I tell myself " Just push on to ..... it's only 5 miles, that's only 20 minutes you can have a cereal bar and a 5 minute break there- and from there it's only 20 miles to go that won't be more than 2 hours then."
Somehow it's easier to keep going if you keep succeeding in getting to little goals. The importance of morale cannot be undestimated in these suffering based endeavours.
But there were no goal posts along the road to Agulia. It was long and dull; cold and grey; uphill; painful and frankly it was not fun!
"This is shit!", I told myself , " I hate this place!", and at the time it was true. I like a challenge, even a struggle sometimes, but I don't enjoy pain and suffering- especially in the cold.
I pulled into Aguila at lunchtime. Still no sun, grey skies, 7 degrees C and windy.
I had been promising myself a treat, a meal to warm up from the inside and the outside at the same time, an excuse to sit down for an hour. Mamma's Cafe was on the way out of town. It was closed down- "For Sale by Owner" said the sign.
It reminded me once again that America really is completley bankrupt, the recession has hit here so much harder than it has at home. People are going out of business left right and centre. Houses, land, businesses are up for sale or rent or lease whatever they can get.
It's really obvious how hard the crisis has hit. It is very visible wherever you go once you get away from the oceanside communities. Homes and farms are not being maintained, empty boarded up buildings are all too common along these country backroads.
Millions are out of work.
It's really sad to see. I feel for the people, they are average people who have worked hard all their lives now thy're facing a very uncertain futures: the nouveau poor.
The "American Dream" has taken a severe blow. It is far, far worse than I imagined it would be.
I found food on the way out of town at one of the only establishments still in business. It was incredibly hard to get back out on the bike and inflict the final 25 miles on myself, but a full belly works wonders on me.
After a slog over a pass before Wickenberg the last 10 miles did actually afford some nice views and an easy down hill, going to prove that every cloud has a silver lining.
As I literally rolled into Wickenburg I was standing in the saddle to let the circulation return to my crushed loins. It had been a horrible day so I spared myself camp cooking. It was the right choice, I was rewarded with delicious food and an interesting encounter with the proprietors who gave me many small insights to life rumming a business and life in recession struck Arizona.
After dark it didn't get much colder it was the end of a day that never really came. I for one was glad to see the back of it.
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