The day started with me over sleeping. I got on the road at 7am local time – but before you give me too much grief – that’s 5am PHX time. Anyway, I started down the road at 7 and noticed there was a wind blowing that was headed my way. It took me an hour to get the first 8 miles behind me because of the headwind. Then I got my first flat of the day – yes, I said first flat. Apparently I ran over the metal fibers from a blow out at some point and those smaller-than-a-staple metal hairs have been working their way through the rubber on my tires since the first flat yesterday. Anyway, the real issue with this flat was that despite packing everything I needed to change the flat – a tube, a patch kit, a tire changing tool, and a CO2 pump, I still managed to forget to grab an extra CO2 canister! So, I had to call Stephanie at 8am (6am her time) to get up and bring me supplies 10 miles up the road.
Tag: Events
The day started out great – I was feeling good and I left just before sunrise. I rode about 13 miles before the sun actually rose, and I was able to get some of it on my camera phone. I was making good time and my legs felt great. Then, about 20 miles into the day, I lost a spoke on my back tire. I may not have noticed it right away, except it was the spoke that had my computer magnet on it. So all of the sudden, the computer on the bike said zero miles an hour; since I was still moving at about 12 mph, I knew something was up. That has happened before – usually I just had to adjust the magnet a little to align it back up. When I went to adjust it, the whole spoke moved. So, I removed the broken spoke and took the magnet off by hand. I put it on another spoke and hand tightened it because I didn’t have a screwdriver.
Today was Day 7. It was a short day with only 57 miles from El Paso to Fort Hancock. I pulled into the motel parking lot at 11:30am. They allowed us an early check in, and we headed to Angie’s Restaurant for lunch. It was a cool little place in walking distance from the motel. Actually, everything in town is in walking distance of the motel – The mini-mart, the gas station, the restaurant, and the motel are all in a 1000 ft radius of each other.
Angie’s was quaint and the food was great, but the service was like all small town life – Friendly but SLOW. After lunch we took a nap at the motel, then headed back over for dinner – the slow service would have likely kept us away from a second meal, but it’s a small town – and like the motel and gas station, this restaurant was the ‘only show in town’. I’m glad we went back because the chicken fried stake was excellent as the sign outside promised it would be.
Tomorrow is going to be long and tough. Its an 80 plus mile day with a lot of climbing. I went 85 miles on day 6, but it was a lot of downhill, unlike tomorrow. We’ll see how that turns out. For the first half of this trip, I put my bike on the car everyday for at least some part of the trip — either too much climbing or I ran out of time. Day 6 and 7, the bike was never on the car – I rode the bike from starting point to stopping point without assistance from my ‘support staff’. I’m hoping to make that a theme for the rest of the trip, but 80 plus miles and a couple of thousand feet of climbing tomorrow may prove too much.
Wish me luck!