Anyway,  I got to the start line early due to a son that refuses to let me sleep at night and won't sleep unless he climbs into bed with me at around 2 ish usually so I was up at 2:18 (I hope he gets out of this phase soon,  seems to me I had a similar problem to this with him last year too).  In any case I ended up with enough time to get to the start line and setup but not quite enough to do IHOP so I settled for one of the Muffins Susan had brought  which hit the spot.  After a few announcements we were off and I discovered my job of fixing the mount for my HID light was not quite as good as the original as it had a tendency to bounce left when we hit good sized bumps of which Casa Grande has many!  I however was not the first person on the course to have real light problem though I must admit!  Cruising down Trekell after I had dropped off the pack I came across a rider in the middle of the road trying to find pieces of his taillight which had fallen off of his jersey pocket.  I shined my light for him to see and we managed to find all the pieces with Dave's help (Dave is the guy I ended up riding with all day,  I think his last name is Peashock).  Then we were off again and I really enjoyed having the new light.  It weighed a little more but I found night riding a lot less nerve racking when outrunning my lights was no longer an issue.   Around the turn onto cox I decided to try and get my jiggling light problem fixed and got some help from the person there who was directing riders.  We zip tied it in place and I proceeded to rip it right off the bike with my first pedal stroke.  Hmmmm,  now we have an even bigger problem, as I had torn the headlight mount in half.  surprisingly though my PVC light mount I had made didn't even budge.  Anyway,  we managed to move it in a quarter inch and get it jury rigged with more zip ties and it worked until daylight.

Riding through the hills and dropping into the valley before Coolidge I got really cold.  Being the last rider now it was probably the low point of the ride as I was not riding as fast as I would have liked and was freezing although I had lots of clothes on.  I kept pressing on though figuring I would probably ride the whole ride alone at this point  I figured things would brighten up when it warmed up a bit though and they did.  Just before Sunup I started noticing a tallight ahead going down Coolidge rd.   I finally caught up to Dave Peasock just at dawn and we would end up riding together all day. 

At Tom Mix monument I discovered my bag and all my drink mix had gone on to the lunch stop.  Dave let me use an extra scoop of his HEED though (which made for a really interesting but not necessarilly bad flavor when mixed with Peachy Keen Cytomax).  We left our lights with the person signing cards at the control and I went out to the sign to have a couple of Bikers take my picture.  They were heading down to Tombstone.  I told them where we were heading and they were pretty impressed.

On our way up the "Scenic"  Pinal Parkway (Dave and I had this discussion that at least the first part is just kind of a straight false flat that really isn't that scenic except for the mountain in the distance I took a picture of).  I knew this stretch was a long slog before getting to it so didn't feel too bad about keeping 12-14 mph most of the way up it.  I was determined not to blow up today and I was having a little excersize induced asthma to boot so I figured I would just take things nice and easy today and Dave seemed to be doing that too so it worked out well.

Speaking of dropping down into Catalina,  that annoying crosswind turned into an incredible tailwind as we turned the corner at Oracle Junction.  The ride down through Catalina was great with coasting speeds up at 25 mph.  Saw a lot of cyclists in this stretch it was really nice to see so many people out.  Also in this stretch I discovered a different sort of Randonneuring experience.   Dave likes to stop a lot.  Which is fine,  don't get me wrong,  it's just not something I normally do a lot.  Mostly I just stop at controls for a minute or two and I am gone.  Seeing as all my energy food was sitting in my backpack on its way to lunch (and I assume it had a fine lunch :) )  I decided that perhaps McDonalds was not that bad of an idea really.

After McDonalds we stopped at a supermarket for some lip balm (and judging from my sunburns today I should have bought Suntan Lotion at this point as mine was in my backpack but oh well live and learn).  I digested lunch as we blissfully were blown down Oracle Road and then down Ina and again with a bit of a tailwind down Silverbell.  This was a really nice stretch actually in terms of winds. Then we had to turn and say goodbye to favorable winds for a long time.   At Gates Pass I told Dave I would meet him at the lunch stop since I was going to spin easy up the pass so as not to toast my legs.  I actually did succeed in making it most of the way without going anearobic but finally started huffing right on the last bit (of course the process of taking some pictures helped keep my heart rate down a bit too I think).

Dave got ahead for a little bit after this as there was just a touch of climbing left and I had been intentionally taking the climbs easy so as not to worsen the asthma or finish off my legs.  When we got to Mile Wide Road though I passed him and waited for him at the bottom while I changed the batteries in the GPS (mental note to self,  use the extra life Lithium batteries next time as they will go a full 20 hrs).  We kept together most of the way to Picture Rocks.  I had a much easier time on this stretch than last year.  Last year I used the last of my oomph getting over Gates Pass and finished myself off for the day.  This time I found the hills quite a bit easier.  We ended up stopping in Picture Rocks so I could fill my platypus with Gatorade and Dave could stock up on supplies too. 

After Picture Rocks we ran into what I like to call "Orcs of the Modern World".  They were a bunch of people on 4 wheelers cruising down the side of the road at about the same speed we were making a huge cloud of dust for us (my how considerate they were to slow down when we did and speed up when we did too!  Although I am sure that was coincidence but still annoying).  So after much coughing and a mile or two they decide to cross the road and head off somewhere else (and there was much rejoicing!  Yay!).  Now we were left alone to realize how annoyting this headwind was that was cutting our speed way down on what would otherwise be a choice piece of downhill grade.  At Avra road Dave made the point that we should probably get Susan on the horn and find out where our lights were that we had dropped off at Tom Mix.  Susan said someone was out looking for us to give me my light but they didn't have Daves light.  We in fact had not ridden a hundred yards after that call when we ran into the person who had my light.  2 zip ties later my light was on and hooked in and ready to fire up the night.  Off to Trico.

Heading up to the Trico Mini-Mart we had our last headwinds of the day of any consequence and we bid them good riddence as we turned onto west towards Marana.

After I finished buying more gatorade I came outside to see that as soon as Dave had finished pulling his spare light out and fitting it on,  Susan had pulled up with his light battery.   She also had a rather delicious Hammer Gel pack which I downed.   After getting all our warm clothes on once again we took off into the descending night.  Well,  it hadn't quite descended yet actually, I had forgotten to take off my sunglasses is what it was and Dave pointed this out (good thing to or I would have been trying to figure out why my headlights were dimmer than they were in the morning in just a few minutes). 

Rounding the corner we headed north,  yelled at the Black Dog that wanted to chase us and proceeded to wear out my HID's batteries.  The EL-500 makes a really nice backup light I find,  especially at the speed we were taking things.  Anyway,  Dave still had his HID going and I could see the road way up ahead in his beam too so that helped.  One annoying thing through here was we kept hitting cold pockets of air and occasionally a brief headwind.   We found a fog bank in here too,  really weird,  there must be some water somewhere near the road in that section or something.  Almost thought it looked like dust at first but it didn't smell like dust.

About 8 miles out from La Palma we were just riding along on pavement smooth as silk when I hear a snap noise in Daves back wheel which sounded like he ran over something but it turned out to be a broken spoke.  It was right after this that my HID Battery went out  actually so I was still able to give Dave some good light to see by.  After fiddling with it he got the brake pads off and re-arranged the tire so the tire only lightly rubbed on the frame.  The rubbing actually made a pretty funky rhythm when we were heading out of La Palma,  almost was a samba. 

Finally we came upon the lights of Casa Grande.  It really was the only last couple of miles to the interstate crossing that I had actually started thinking about the ride maybe being a little long.  I also remember contrasting my thoughts here with my thoughts last year.  Last year I remember thinking that perhaps this would be my last brevet for the year because I was really beat.  This year I remember thinking what a really awesome day that had been and I would like to do it again after a good nights rest and few days to recover.  Of course there was a difference of a few inches of precipitation in the weather patterns between the two rides as well in all fairness.

Back in the Parking lot we gave a knock on Susan's truck window and we got out last control signature and called it a night.  On the 400k I am definitely going to make a point of sleeping in the car for an hour or so before I leave because after this one I found myself having to stop many times on the way home to shake the drowsiness out of my head.  I eventually did make it home but I think I would have enjoyed the drive more if I had just taken a chunk of sleep before I left and been done with it.  So there you have it.   Paul's slow ride of adventure and fun!  We got back around 10:30 so I guess that puts us between 17 and 18 hours.  I figure we stopped for  around 4 hours in various places according to the GPS so we didn't do too bad with all the stops and everything that happened.