Oatman to Kingman

Monday 9 April 2018

Today's route was from Oatman to Kingman

On the way out of Oatman there is an old gas station with some old gas pumps

 Leaving Oatman was going to be a hard pedal, about 4 miles of uphill with grades as steep as 12%.  There was one stretch of a couple hundred yards I had to walk, other than that it was just slow going.

this is both up hill and down

did you see me in the previous picture?

Oatman, AZ started as a gold mining town.  There are hundreds of mines in the hills surrounding the town.  As the gold boom went bust there are remains of old housing throughout the hills.

The winding road going up Sitgreaves pass.

More of the road going up the pass

finally at the top

A view from the top looking east

looking a little northeast

while descending I thought this was a good picture 

There are apparently lots of wild Burro's wandering the hills.  This is the only one I saw, other than the ones in Oatman.

This is one of the places featured in the movie "Cars"

Thimble Mountain in the background.

From this point I has a few more miles of downhill but there was a strong headwind so I had to work at going down hill.  The road continued east into the headwind with a fairly consistent grade of about 2% but with a headwind of 15-20 mph.

looking back down the hill

and what was ahead.

Needed to get over those hills to get to Kingman.

  Near the entrance of "Old Town" Kingman is this Locomotive and Caboose 

 I arrived in Kingman exhausted.  Today was the toughest day of cycling so far.  I know I didn't take that many pictures but it was a day of just grinding the pedals.  I set a blazing average pace of 6.9 mph.   I got to the hotel and nap.  Hot shower and out to dinner.