Day 9 Albuquerque to Las Vegas (135 miles)

No not that Las Vegas, this one is in New Mexico and has 99% less places to eat and 100% less places for entertainment. 10 of us arrived in the lobby dressed in the full lycra gear, pushing our bikes and asked if there was anywhere to eat. The receptionist said, sure, you go out of here, turn right, continue on for about 3 miles..... so it's pizza delivery this evening.

Spoke to Kate yesterday "It's all going well, I'm feeling fine, the bike is working brilliantly, the GPS is great and the netbook is also fantastic". "You've done it now" was her reply. So this morning I checked the wheels and a few of the spokes on the rear were really loose. I asked tour leader Mike to take a look and he kindly did so whilst I was having breakfast. 20 minutes later the prognosis was not good. The wheel's screwed, all the spokes are too far gone to rescue, it would need a total rebuild and even then it's likely to go again. This was going to be expensive, very expensive. The next problem is that with 135 miles to do we can't hang around waiting for bike shops to open, also we're going to some really remote areas, we won't pass a shop that stocks this kind of stuff for about 5 days. Once again the team really came to the rescue. Mike lent me a wheel (which goes better than the old one) and another rider, Jay, had friends at a bike shop in Dallas. We called them and they're going to Fedex a new set to tomorrow night's hotel. The upside is that those wheels were the only thing I didn't love about the bike, it was really difficult to change a tyre on them. The new ones are the one's I've always wanted. We didn't really need that new sofa did we honey?

It was a really excellent day today, felt super strong, even after 120 miles and rode near the front all day. Maybe it was that massage from yesterday, maybe manipulating the muscles in my scalp has diverted the chi and re-routed the energy lines in my whole body. Or perhaps my legs just needed a damn good rub. Whatever it was, it worked.

We passed through some stunning countryside, I don't think that photo does it justice, but there's a snow capped mountain in the background. Wooded hillsides stretching for up to 50 miles in any direction. This is the America I came to see.

We had another casualty today. One guy got really short of breath and had to go to hospital. He's OK and was discharged this evening. Could have been a combination of a lot of things, including the altitude, we went over an elevation of 8000 feet today. Several of us are having problems sleeping, I'm only getting 4-5 hours a night. Altitude could be a factor there too. Another guy broke a spoke which busted his wheel. Mike was on his way to the hospital so couldn't fix it, so he had to ride in the other van for several miles. He was one of the guys who made it on day two, so now we're down to one who's ridden every inch. It's really tough on bodies and machines out here.

There was a really good atmosphere today. Although I rode on my own most of the time, we all met up at the SAGs and everyone was in a good mood. Did get in late though, just after 6, that was 11 hours out there, although the SAG stops were quite leisurely.

Thanks for all your messages of support. It means a lot to know there's so many people following my progress. I'll try and reply individually, but not tonight. Tomorrow is 110 miles, bring it on.