On a bicycle made for two...

14/Mar. Day 22.  El Paso - Alamo Alto. 43 Miles. New state: Texas! At the point of reaching El Paso, L and I thought we’d have the option to either stick on the Adventure Cycling Association’s ‘Southern Tier’ coast to coast route, or travel directly north so as to hop onto another ACA coast to coast route which runs parallel through the mid states. It would appear not. The cold winter weather across the middle and north of the USA which had dictated we begin our cycle in the more temperate south, was still lingering and so it was an easy decision, we would be continuing to ride The Southern Tier.   We bumped into Brian outside a coffee shop in El Paso, or maybe he bumped into us. The coffee shop was built from a couple of brightly coloured, stacked, shipping containers which reminded us of Christchurch, NZ. Brian was interesting, he was American and travelling the US in his car, visiting all of the country’s most amazing places. I’d hoped to include a photo of the 3 of

11/Mar. Day 19. Lordsburg - Hachita.  48 Miles. The route d eviation  begins. “Isn’t it lucky we’re on a tandem and your’e not the one steering!” This had been L’s reaction when I broke the news that my glasses were still sitting in our motel room back in Lordsburg. We wouldn’t be pedalling all the way back there so we arranged for the motel to send the glasses to a post office on route, a week or so ahead of us. I had to remind L that in the interim a white cane wouldn’t be necessary, I still had my contact lenses.  We lost the phone reception on our way through the low lying shrub desert to Hachita. This was only the second time since being in the USA that this had happened. Drastically different from Australia where you can travel (by vehicle) for days and days and days and not have any phone reception! The residence of Hachita offer the use of their community centre as a place where touring cyclists can stay for a fee. There’s no rooms or beds, the situation is

8/Mar. Day 16. Globe - Safford. 73 Miles. 2nd Puncture! Halfway through Apache reservation land we took a break from pedalling and grabbed something to eat from the local store. We ended up staying longer than expected due to gaining a puncture in the car park on the way out. This was puncture #2 of the trip. Were our Schwalbe ‘puncture proof’ tyres letting us down!? Or had they already been busy, quietly deflecting hundreds of other sharps over the last 600 miles on sone of these rough American roads?  Supermarkets and fuel stations rank highly for places where we often receive Flying Fox compliments, today was no exception. We’d already received a handful before the local preacher, a tandem rider himself, stopped to chat whilst we struggled on with replacing the inner tube. Today was set to be our longest day of the trip so far: 73 miles, simply because there are no motels or camping on the reservation land between Globe and Safford. 9/Mar. Day 17. Safford -

2/Mar. Day 10. Wickenburg to Surprise 31 Miles. Terrain: gradual downhill. Quick fix at the bike shop. L had pinned the closest bike shop, on the outskirts of Phoenix, to repair our broken spoke and we rolled in just before lunch. We spent a while in the shop chatting to the guys whilst they fixed the spoke and generously went further, giving The Flying Fox a service. L couldn’t have picked a better bike shop, these guys were awesome, we really appreciated their help. They are Build A Bike, if you happen to be needing a bike shop near Phoenix. With the new spoke fitted and a handful of spares now in our possession we headed over to Jerry’s in Sun City; a 40,000 strong population of over 50’s living in one huge, perfectly manicured, retirement town. Jerry is over 50, in fact he’s 81 but he doesn’t look it. As well as being an avid cyclist, Jerry is also a pilot and yesterday he flew his light aircraft over to Tucson, just to breakfast with friends. We like Jerry, he ha