The big desert crossing - Cycling the Mojave sauna

I woke up right with the sunrise that morning as the temperatures started to rise immediately under the exposure of the sunlight. They haven't dropped even below 80℉/27℃ that night so it was supposed to become a really hot day!

Place near Hoover Dam

This day I intended to cycle through Vegas, seeing the city and the Las Vegas Strip of course and not to forget: a picture with the Las Vegas sign for sure:) Cause the city was just 40km away I could spend most of the day there, at least that was the plan, and maybe see the strip also at night if I could make it far enough out of town afterwards.

After cycling the first two kilometers I already reached the first highlight of the day: the Hoover Dam. This Dam is more than 220m/655ft tall and looks super impressive from the Interstate bridge where I crossed the Colorado. You could ride on a street right on the top of the dam as well but going over the bridge offers you much better views of the dam itself than if you would stand right on the top of it and I saved some extra climbs:)
The Lake Mead, created by the Dam has definitely receded a lot during the drought here in the last couple of years. The water level is now at least 30-40m lower than it could be when the lake would be filled up to the very top. I guess that Vegas takes most of the water out of the river, I mean I'm really surprised that the river even continues to flow downstream considering how much water Vegas must consume daily!

Hoover Dam with Lake Mead behind (you can see the former waterline pretty well)

I was happy that the temperatures stayed kinda cool that morning in the valley so I hoped to make it over the small pass via Boulder City before noon, well...that hope got destroyed immediately because my shifting cable of the back gear rim decided to say goodbye to me exactly then! It broke right at the very top inside the case on the handlebar so I couldn't get it outta there myself to replace the cable. So that meant I could use just three different gears from now to climb up the 400m pass to the next bike shop in Boulder City! I kinda managed it then to choose the three gears I wanted by pulling it that far as possible and bending it around my saddle so it couldn't move. With that temporary construction I was able then to climb the pass without shifting even a single time which can get kinda annoying while there're a lot of changes in steepness which actually require different gears!

Emergency solution:/

Once I reached the shop they were able to fix the cable easily and figured out that my chain was meanwhile totally worn out so they replaced this one for just 25$ as well. But not enough with that, there was another thing that wanted to be fixed. Surprise!!: Another flat tire!! It must have happened just on the way up cause I didn't felt anything till I got to the shop. It actually just started to loose air there so I looked it up by myself and surprise again: another metal wire from one of these fucking truck tires!!!! Sorry for this expression but this was now the second flat in two days and the third in two weeks!! I can't believe that this kind of harmless looking stuff on the road can do so much damage to your wheel compared to things like glass which I hit way more often for sure!! There should be actually a law against leaving burst tires on the road which is not just bad for cyclists, it also looks just simply awful!!

Looks pretty familiar:/

That what it looks like on the road!

So I had to fix that as well and could forget about getting into Vegas before the very hot afternoon temperatures!
When I finally had the city in sight it was already 40℃/104℉ and I haven't even been down in the city-basin. At least I could ride downhill so it actually wasn't too bad but I was still thinking all the time how this city could have grown that big in an environment nobody really wants to live in if not really necessary! Is it really just the gambling? At least it's definitely big here cause even before I really got into town I passed dozens of casinos, it's just everywhere!

Getting into city:)

Did you know that Micheal won 10000$? Try it it's so easy:P

"Unfortunately" I'm not an adult in the US yet so I'm basically not allowed to gamble what saved me definitely some money (honestly, although I'm not a gambler I would have tried it one time for a couple dollars for sure once I'm already here).
This matter of fact gave me more time to cycle along the Vegas Strip and seeing all these super big Casinos and Hotels along this famous Boulevard while temperatures climbed up to 43℃ finally. Most of them (not all) are replica of famous places around the world. So you can find a small version of the Rialto-Bridge in Venice, a small Eiffel Tower or a little Statue of Liberty on this road. What I didn't know before was that even Donald Trump built a hotel there, not exactly on the strip but right next to it so you can see it very well (and for sure it has his name written on it in big golden letters, basically the whole building is golden - what else?:) Somehow exactly at this moment I passed by there, a huge ralley/demonstration against Donald Trump was about to start on the Boulevard and supposed to end exactly in front of the hotel with more than 2000 people taking part! But although it was for a good purpose and there have been free drinks all over the place I decided to keep distance to the wild mob and went on my ride:)

Vegas-Panorama (Trump hotel on the left)

The Eiffel Tower fake

My first stop: a bicycle shop again cause the brand new shifting cable kinda stretched and affected the shifting pretty bad and of course I could have taken hand on that myself but I thought to watch someone in a bike shop doing it this time would be good to be able to adjust it the next time by myself. Well... I better would have tried it myself cause this bastard in the bike shop charged me 17$ for a three minute adjustment!!!! 17$!!!! That's 340$ per hour!! Fu***** #!%$&!%% sorry but I was really pissed, he was literally just tightening a screw!
At least I could distract myself quickly with calling the Radio another time and then I went straight on to the famous Vegas-sign at the south end of the strip. When I arrived there almost a hundred people were waiting there in a que for taking a photo. While I was waiting then for at least 10 minutes I decided to just do what actually began as a joke: When it was my turn for the photo then I quickly pitched my tent in front of the sign (hold by two people cause I couldn't use pegs) looking out of it, pretending to camp there for the night:) It got lots of weird looks and laughs and I really wondered if I was the first one ever to do this, I mean people have probably done a lot of weird and crazy things there but pitching a tent? Im not sure:)

Found a spot for the night:)

Anyway, I really wanted to see the strip at night as well so I returned back into the city while it was getting dark. Just before I spotted a supermarket called "99-cents store" which I haven't seen before. It turned out to be the best way to save money ever! You can get literally almost everything for just 1$: Noodles, yoghurt, drinks, cookies...everything! I used the chance to stock up my supplies for the upcoming desert crossing and bought so much stuff but I expected to get no chance for cheap food till L.A.

Cheapest place ever!

All that for just 8$!

When I reached the Bellagio Hotel then again I simply had to stop and watch the famous fountain-show there which is, I have to say, really impressive! Unfortunately I can't get the video from my camera to my SD-card but for those who haven't heard about it yet at all, I'm sure there're some clips on YouTube available. It's hard to describe how amazing it looks like but it's simply stunning what they were able to create here. About hundreds of fountains are able to move in an 360° angle and sputter in every intensity creating a kind of "dance" to songs. Cause it's kinda hypnotizing to look at and you just have to wait a couple of minutes between every show I ended up sitting there till midnight when the last show has been over, recording videos all the time:)

Taking videos of the fountain show with a sausage tripod:)

The Bellagio Fountain Show

More pics from Vegas at night time:)

When I continued then on my trip after midnight I was kinda lucky that I was cycling outta Vegas and not any other city cause Vegas is definitely the only big place around here for hundreds of miles which means there're no suburbs or anythjng like in most other cities and you can quickly find a place to sleep.

Just out of town

Prepared for the crossing!

The next morning I had to make an important decision: It was time to decide about the Death Valley part of my trip. Well...although I have been sure about most of the time going through there I can tell now all of them who have been worried about this part that it was an easy thing to decide not to at this point.
Three reasons made me skip on this detour:
1. It would have been a biiig detour! Nearly 250km more to get to the coast and I really wanted to finally arrive on the other side:)
2. The weather forecast for the following 7 days was about 49℃/120℉ every day. This is simply too hot for cycling during the day and would have meant night-cycling what also would have meant not seeing anything and then it simply wouldn't have been worth it to visit this place without having seen any of it!
The third reason was then that this route would have put me right next to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada where I wanted to go anyway and I didn't want to visit the same area twice really.

Protecting my smartphone from the heat!

So I went on the straight and "easier" route to L.A. following Interstate 15 most of the way. "Easier" because this meant a total of full three days cycling through the hottest part of Mojave Desert during the hottest time of the year. When I checked the weather forecast for Baker, the lowest and approximately hottest place of the crossing it predicted about 46℃/115℉ so just 3℃ lower than in Death Valley and probably the highest possible I would have cycled before switching to night-cycling. But I was still pretty confident and went on early the next morning to get at least a couple hours of cool morning air. Unfortunately it became hot really fast and around noon it hit the 40℃/104℉ already. Because of the heat I already started to see huge coloured rocks in pink, blue, green and red, stacked on top of each other at the side of the road. (no worries, they turned out to be real:D which left the question if the guy who's idea it was to do this maybe has been affected seriously by the heat!:D)

Why??

Soon after I passed a single huge kind of castle which also turned out to be real and in fact a big casino in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nobody gambling in there! People, spending to much time in the desert get definitely the most crazy ideas!

Abandoned casino in the desert!

This was also the point where the official bike trail sign pointed out to the interstate as being the only road for the next 200km! Just shortly after I reached the highlight of my day for sure: the California Border:) Now I entered the final state of my trip with plenty of time left: almost 30days. The first calculations were made very quickly and I realized that it was easily possible to hit the 9000km-mark as I already had 7200behind me:)
To be honest, when I wrote the "8000km that way -->" on my starting photo I didn't really expect that I could really do that much but now I can pretend that this was my minimum-goal:D

Entering the final state!

But as relieved I was to have arrived in the final state, as exhausted the first kilometers there have been. Just after crossing the state line I had to climb up a 600m-pass in the desert heat. It wasn't like breathtaking but the sweat run down all over me and I have to admit that I was super happy when a car stopped next to me offering me two ice-cold bottles of water. Actually I was more happy about how nice it was from these people to stop and try to help me than about the cold water itself. But it definitely helped during the climb and soon I made it over the top.

Dust Devil next to me

Giant Solar Power Plants everywhere!

The thousands of mirrors lighten up the central tower that much that it even looks overexposed 4000 times darker!

Looking back from the climb:)

On the top. What a creative name for a pass:P

Now the landscape started to become really monotone, I mean like really! Endless nothingness of low mountain ranges, all in brown, dead and lonely. What is kinda common in this desert is the famous Joshua-tree. A up two 3-4m high desert plant which only grows in the Mojave Desert and nowhere else.

Joshua Trees in front of nothing:)

Looking back to where the road makes a turn (25km away!)

Nothing changed while I was riding and I kinda enjoyed it cycling through this fascinating, abandoned and lonely environment with it's extremes. On the top of the next little climb on an elevation of 1200m I decided to finish that day and pitched my tent right next to the road cause according to my map a 1000m/3300m descend was ahead and camping right there also meant sleeping 10℃/18℉ cooler than down near Baker, the probably hottest place on my whole trip if I would pass it during the afternoon but now it seemed like getting through there during the morning which meant I could leave the most extreme part behind before it would start being hot like hell so I could expect it not to become that hot the next day, I mean still hotter than ever before but not too bad.

Desert evening

Looking down to Baker

Sleeping place that night

When the sun rose the temperatures haven't dropped below 25℃/77℉ and considering that I still was on 1200m/4000ft it definetly seemed to become a really really hot day and without having a proper breakfast I got on the road quickly trying to make it past Baker during the morning hours. From the place where I slept I had a perfect view over the valley of Baker ahead and got a good impression of how big and wide the dimensions are here in the desert. With nothing familiar to compare like trees, high buildings etc. it's impossible to tell the size of a mountain or the distance to it. Even the descent to Baker didn't looked like 1000m at all, I wouldn't even have guessed 500.

Down in Baker I just had a quick stop and luckily spotted the highest thermometer in the world 42m/134ft, which is actually hard to miss but you still can if you're focused on the road:). It's definitely the main attraction of the village which, I have to say, doesn't have much to see.
A quick look on my speedometer: 9:30am - 33℃/95℉) time to move on! Right decision: it became hot like hell! The minimum gain in elevation after Baker just reduced the temperatures by one or two degrees so pretty soon it hit the 40℃ easily and climbed further to almost 45℃/113℃ not much lower than Death Valley that day with about 49℃/120℉!

Highest thermometer in the world!

Guess how far it is to these mountains in the back!
(30km!)

Nothing but the Interstate...

Temperatures that high are basically not that much a problem to your body (I mean people live and work here or in Phoenix for example where the temperatures are same high) but what made it feel brutal was being exposed to the sun all the time with barely no chance of resting in the shade. The only two times I had the chance of shade were at the exits of the interstate where a road crosses the highway usually. When I measured the temperatures in the sun I got something between 56℃ and 57℃ (133-135℉) what seems about right cause I guess the road surface heats up the air on the ground even more because of the dark colour.
All this sounds probably crazy and feels definitely not comfortable for sure but I have to say that I never felt anything like weak or dizzy or showed any signs of exhaustion really. I guess the most important thing while doing sport in heat and what keeper me fit is to stay hydrated all the time! If you carry enough water and are not too old/weak or sick you're usually safe. Cycling is probably the best kind of sport then cause you're able to carry enough water for the whole day and don't have to carry all the weight on your back like you have to when you're hiking and I guess that this is the main reason for most of the heat-caused deaths happen while hiking in the desert (and it is way more hard to find help when you leave the road as well).
By the way: Listening to podcasts also helped me during this day a lot cause it kept me distracted from how I was feeling the heat:)

Traffic jam on the other side, I feel pity for all those people:/

So much nothingness...

Temperature in the sun!

I almost forgot to mention that I passed a funny sign pointing out to a place called Zzyzx:) The people named this place definitely wanted it to be the last one in the alphabet order, that was the first thing which came to my mind and when I googled it I found out that it was really kinda like this and it is officially the last name in the alphabet order of names of all places in the US but definitely impossible to pronounce!:D

A gas station, I'm saved!! :D

Right before I reached the next small city, Barstow, I got huge headwinds again as if the day wouldn't have been hard enough without that and so I soon decided to stop before Barstow and refuel my bottles with cold drinks the next morning then:) Because of the temperatures I actually wanted to sleep outside but a little scorpion who visited me during dinner made me pitch my tent, I just didn't want to have it in my sleeping bag or shoes or wherever and accidentally touch it!

Following the old route 66 again

Train in the sunset

This guy definitely wanted some of my dinner:)

Where I stayed that night

Although it was so warm I could get some sleep that night to be ready and fit the next morning for my final day in the desert on which I planned to reach L.A.
To be honest nothing really happened this day except of a mysterious bottle-garden I passed near Helendale, a small town on the way, apparently some kind of art work. The ride went pretty smoothly after that and cause I gained some elevation while facing the last mountain range between me and L.A. the temperatures didn't exceed 42℃/108℉ that day and there have been almost no headwinds this time. Even the short climb up the last 1300m pass actually wasn't to bad and by 5pm I had reached the top of it facing a 1200m/4000ft downhill ride into the metropolitan area of Los Angeles, leaving the desert behind me, finally...:)

Five engines pulling one train!!

Mysterious bottle garden

By far the largest diversity of drinks I had so far!

And the largest cup as well 52 ounces (1,53liters)!!

Well-paved road:/

Last pass before L.A.

Right before sunset I grabbed one of the the last possible spots before entering the huge and spread out urban areas of L.A. which I would cross the next day: 90km/55mi of cycling just between buildings with my destination close to downtown.

This night I pitched my tent again because of some huge black widow spiders and hundreds of earwigs crawling around the place, not because I fear them but I just hate it sharing my bed with any kind of insects!

This one wasn't the black widow (it crawled away to fast) but huuge as well!

And last but not least my route:)