Day 14: Anadarko, OK to Ada, OK
Strava Link: Petoji Day 14
After two long days in the saddle, I was feeling tired on Day 14. My legs weren't great and I wanted to save some energy for Day 16, so I took it easy. It was a short day of 104 miles, so even with the slow pace I made it into Ada in the early afternoon and stopped by the post office to pick up a box. There were a few times during Petoji when I used general delivery at the post office. General delivery is great. You can mail yourself a package and the post office will hold it for a little while. All you have to do is show up with your ID and you get your package.
The Ada package was mostly food plus a new tire. For Petoji I was riding the same tires I always ride- Maxxis ReFuse. I've been riding them for years and they may not be the fastest tires out there, but they are very durable and flat resistant. I've always favored those two qualities over rolling resistance, weight, etc. Both tires could have made it all the way through Petoji. The rear tire was showing a little wear, but it was nowhere near squared off and it probably had at least 2,000 miles of left left on it. Before the ride I didn't know what to expect in terms of road surface. How rough would the roads be and how much junk would be on them? You can ride the toughest tires out there, but every once in a while there's junk out on the road that will cut any tire. I managed to make it to Ada without any major cuts in the tire, so the new tire was a bit of a waste. I hate to waste things, but it wasn't worth the money to ship a tire back to Reno, either. I moved the old front tire to the back and put the new tire on the front. Only one tire was going to be dipped in both oceans.
Day 14 was the first day where I would recommend a route change. I was on 19 for most of the day, which was OK but could have been better. There are plenty of alternate routes on county roads in this area. Avoiding the highway adds some extra mileage, but this is a day where it's probably worth it, especially if you're doing the route over more than 23 days and have more time to do so. In my case, I was coming off of two long days and really didn't care. I just wanted the shortest line between two points. I wouldn't say that the route is unsafe, but there's definitely room for improvement here.
