Somewhere, in some official library, in some official book
it is written that no person is able to drive across the country without having
something of epic proportions happen along the way.
The drive out west was supposed to be a simple ordeal, a
three day span that would get us to our destination without a hitch. Well…lets
just say we had a little bit of a snag. We did however get very familiar with
the Paint Pony Lodge, in the small but friendly town of Show Low (6,400 feet)
in Navajo county (which I highly recommend if you are stranded in the middle of
no where in the mountains of Arizona).
First a preempt detail.
For those of you that haven’t seen the Gateway
Harley-Davidson/Trek Team roll up to a race, you are in for a treat. This is a
vary large passenger van that is painted black with skulls and Harley logos all
over it…o and the oversized tires actually puts us up higher then a Hummer. If
this and nine skinny cyclist doesn’t put fear into your heart, then I have no
idea what will…alright back to the story.
Lets start from the beginning.
On Sunday January 6th my teammate Cameron Rex and
I rolled out from Kansas City with about 19 hours between our destination and
us. I was oddly awake for having 9 hours of driving on me from the day before,
and somehow managed to crank out 12 hours straight. If you want to replicate
this feat, my secret is lots and lots of caffeine…I know…where did I come up
with that one? (personal Favorite is sugar free rockstar and espresso) Thanks
Tyler Karnes for teaching me that one.
With 3 hours to go to Phoenix our diesel engine fluid system
was having major issues. It then decided that it must limit our speed first to
65…then 55….then 4 mph! Each time counting down miles till it cruelly limited us once step more. It felt as if a large hand was coming down and doing everything from letting us reach our desert paradise.
So again lets pause and get a visual. A massive Harley van
being passed by everyone and their grandmother as its moving down the highway
at a snails pace…ya…
First we stopped at a dealership in Gallup, these true
Native American mechanics spent 5 hours working on our van to tell us they have
no clue and asked us if we wanted to just try to get to our destination…sure I
said. Lets try.
Bad move.
About 30 miles
later and 6 miles to go till our van would limit us to a booming 4mph on the
highway, we pulled over to see if we could reset the car. So I crawled under
the van to unhook both batteries that supplies this massive car with the power
it needs. Lets just say this was not successful at all…
Last solution, we had Onstar pull us to the closest Chevy
dealership. This just happened to be in the lovely town of Show Low 50 miles away.
So now picture our taller then a hummer van, sitting on top of a tow truck,
while it wobbles back in forth on pitch black mountain roads…skettttcchhhyyy!
On the plus
side we had a very nice and chatty tow man (good thing Cameron is talkative,
since at this point I had had a long enough day where I was in no mood to talk).
By the time we got to the hotel it was 11 at night and we crashed at the lovely
Best Western/ Paint Pony Lodge next door.
How long can two cyclists entertain themselves in a very
small mountain town? Well we did find one training route, and found out how
much altitude takes getting used to, but what we didn’t know was that a snow storm
was heading our way… and that fixing a car is never just a “simple fix”.
So ill give y'all a little brake from this story. But check back soon to see what happened to our young adventurers! but in the meantime here is a few pics along the way.
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