Day 7-Can you say climb

Cottonwood to Flagstaff, Ariz

Miles: 44.38 part of 46.0

Time: 4.21

Average: 10.2

Max 29.1

Total Ascednt: 3217

Est Calories: 7762

Total was relatively short, thank goodness. It was a full day of climbing. While not climbing every mile, it sure seemed like it: evidence the average speed, climbing ascent, and est calories above.

It was also very pretty going thru Sedona region(last picture above). But, all throughout the canyons, we climbed. We sometimes lost contact with the Garmin connection which is the reason for the shortfall in mileage from the expected miles.

Some bikers stopped in Sedona for a break, whereas my roomie and I stopped at a very rustic deli a few miles outside of town. The deli had a covered pourch were we sat with our snacks (in my case, ice tea and a very big, yummy chocolate muffin), and watching folks coming and going to the store. Very comfortable, and very hard to get going again. Not far from the Deli we came upon a couple of bikers (not sure if they were married or just friends). They were from Winnipeg, Canada doing an unsupported 2 week bike trip around these mountains. Everything they had to go on were in her two panniers, and his backpack... a bit more spartan for my taste, but it seemed to have suited them perfectly as they seemed to have done this many times before.

Oh, yeh, we saw our downhill race friend with the trailer on his bike again today at the top of today's large climb. (The first three pictures are from the lookout poiunt after we climbed some 11% grade on the last climb to the lookout. Those pictures show a bit of the climb out of Sedona.

I did manage to get a new wheel at the end of the day from Absolute Bikes, in Flagstaff. We had 3 differenct bikers with issues besides my own. One included a broken chain for an 8 cassette, and my roomie couldn't shift the Cogs to the granny except manually. Since my temporary wheel was clunky today, we both essentially road the entire day in the small rings, which really wasn't a problem given the climbing. The bike shop deserves mentioning given that they put a number of mechanics on our issues immediatelly on a busy Saturday afternoon, and have us all up and running. They had my wheel set on a new bike on the showroom floor, but would not break-up the set for just the rear wheel, so I now have a mixed and match wheel set. Not my preference but beggars can't be choosers. The ydid call around town, and no other shop had anything better then the Mavic they put on. See ya.....