Day 22 - Wilcox AZ to Lordsburg NM

This day was a very, very hard day for many reasons. Alas Ken Boyd, my ride partner since Los Angeles, had reached his physical limit and could not continue. It was good he stopped as I faced intense headwinds the whole 75 miles and I started the day with a flat (tiny wire from a destroyed truck tire) and later one of my panniers partially broke and my bicycle pump broke too.

I did see billions of wildflowers carpeting the landscape.

I stopped at a good jerkey place.

This shows the 20-30 mile sustained headwinds I faced.

Luckily just after my pannier broke, I happened upon a truck stop that also featured an Ace Hardware store so was able to get all the parts for a solid and permanent fix (rather than relying on a jury-rigged bungie cord workaround).

As I left Arizona there was a great sunset.

Upon entering New Mexico, I still had strong headwinds and it took me another 3.5 hours bicycling in the dark to reach my destination. I rode from 7am to 11pm -- a very long biking day! Due to the strong winds I had to sit and spin most of the time. I usually like to get out of the saddle a lot when biking, but not this day. So my bum was a bit more sore than usual.