Cross country ride, march 24, fort hancock to van horn

early morning in the country with our road ahead

Today was almost like another rolling recovery day, only 75 miles long. Yes, we did some long gentle climbs, but the middle 30 miles of the ride were either level or a slight down hill, and the last 10 miles were a downhill coast all the way. To top it off we had a blessed tail wind, mild in the morning but getting stronger and strongeer as the day wore on. As we reached the last climb leading into the long downhill, it was definitely blowing strong enough to ease the climb. It was a truly wonderful ride.

Unfortunately I started the day by forgetting to start my garmin, but thanks to my simple clock/speed/ride distance back up computer which I had remembered to zero out, I do know that the ride was 75 miles long and am guessing from start time and end time and trying to account for the hour lost to the change in time zones and another hour and a half for SAG stops and a lunch stop, that the riding time was about 5 hours which means that most of the time the speed was averaging 15 miles an hour. All I know is that a lot of the day felt like an easy cruise, which considering the mileage, was a relief.

We started out from Fort Hancock, fortified by breakfast burritos, huevos rancheros, French toast, pancakes and waffles from Angies café across the street. As we were stumbling back across the road in the pre-dawn dark, we ran into Scott, the unofficial group mascot who was traveling the route solo pulling his camping gear. He has hooked up with the three guys from Alaska that I rode with briefly between Brawley and Blythe California which was only 2 ½ weeks ago but seems like another lifetime. We talked briefly and exchanged horror stories about flat tires and Emory Pass but then they went on the breakfast and we went over to pick up pocket snacks and pump our tires.

Because of the recurring headwinds and the dust storm of the prpevious afternoon and evening, and because of the longer day, everyone was eager to get on the road as soon as it was light enough so everyone had rolled out by 7:15 even our slowest starter and rider started out with the main group.

By the time we got out of town and out into the farm fields everyone had settled into an easy riding pace and the groups had spread out.

The ride has been rerouted to avoid having to ride long stretches of the shoulder along I 10 which is a good idea in theory but does mean that we end up riding a lot of rural, less cared for, chip seal roads. As we ride there are debates bout types of tires and inflation pressures that may make the ride more comfortable or possibly more of a slog. Since I am not a morning person, I was glad to be in a threesome with Janet and Carol, who were content to just ride and look around without constant comment. There were a few subtle climbs which were only noticed because we suddenly found ourselves breathing a bit harder, and one back track on a side road to get us up to I 10 for a short stint on the shoulder before we went onto the parallel access road. I am somewhat used to riding on highway shoulders, since that is what I often end up on around Houston, and actually almost prefer them to the side roads, simply because of the nicer road surface. It does freak a lot of the ladies out however and there is a small group that complains about the chip seal surface and then complains about the highway shoulder. Perhaps by the time we leave Texas they will have toughened up a bit.

The rest of the ride alternated short sections of I 10 with longer sections of the chip seal access road.
Carol (tall lady on a bike) cruising along near the border

At the turn off in Esperanza, Janet and I had stopped for a step down and cue sheet check when a border patrol car pulled slowly up behind us. When I heard the crunch of tires I turned around to make sure I was off the road, and I noticed he was leaning out of his window checking the ground and tracking something. When he pulled up next to us, he greeted us and inquired if we were US citizens. Then he asked which way we were going and were there any bikers down the road ahead of the turn off. When I replied that I didn’t think so unless they were lost, but in any case we were all females over 50 and US citizens and pretty hard to mistake as anything else, he admitted that the bikes were probably the give away. We turned left and he headed off on down the road, still looking for something on the ground, footprints, cast off water bottles, signs of furtive activity, who knows.

We encountered border patrol vehicles and officers two other times along the road, once when we had taken turns furtively scampering down into a culvert to use the shelter for potty break activities, and once when we were fixing a flat tire on Janet’s bike. It left me wondering what they thought they were accomplishing, but I finally decided that maybe they were just bored and wanting to talk to someone.

We reached Sierra Blanco at 43 miles by lunch time and decided to try one of the two eateries in town so we went to Curly’s BBQ and had delicious Texas BBQ brisket sandwiches with iced tea and dill pickles. It was a superb meal and just the right portions for a change. The café was decorated with hundreds of police, sheriff and law enforcement arm patches, old signs and soft drink bottles, an eclectic assortment of glass insulators from telephone poles, dial telephones, miscellaneous humorous signs and dozens of pigs, stuffed, parceling, carved, glazed, and glass, along with a couple of dozen large Mr. Potato Heads, complete with all the parts to play with.

At one point later in the ride we were supposed to leave the service road on the north side of I 10, cross the gravel to the shoulder, run our bikes across the west bound lane of I10, across the median, and across the east bound lane to get to the service road on the other side. As we rode along watching the heavy trucks scream by, none of us were looking forward to playing “frogger.” Fortunately, it turned out that the overpass had been recently completed so we were able to cross over and get onto the shoulder of the east bound lane with no problem.
The rest of the ride was a gentle three mile climb with a strong wind at our backs, followed by a super fast 7 mile downhill into Van Horn with the wind on our backs. It was a perfect end to one of the best 75 mile rides I have ever done. The weather was lovely and cool, the tail winds were great, the scenery beautiful and the legs have recovered from Emory Pass, just in time to climb up the Taylor Mountains to the McDonald Observatory and Davis Mountain State Park on a 90 mile day tomorrow.

Today’s stats

75 miles
5:00
15 mph with a maximum of 37 on the last downhill and a minimum of 11 mph on one of the longer climbs.
Total flats to date 38 with Robin holding the record with 9 and the others averaging 2 per person.



So far, knock on wood and praise the Bontrager Race Lite gods, I haven’t had any but I am fanatic about checking and wiping the tires every time I stop. The biggest hazard is the nasty little wires shed out by sidewalls as the shatter. They end up as pin thin shards that seem magically attracted to tires.