17 Mar 09 – Day Twenty. For the first time in their journey, the intrepid adventurers covered more than one hundred miles (110 actually) in a day! Woohoo! And for the second time on their trip they passed through Alpine (though in Texas not California). And their knack for finding the weird and wonderful is still going strong (see photo). Their route took them mostly east through a relatively easy area (lack of big climbs and overall downhill) with them overnighting in the booming metropolis of Sanderson.

110 miles covered today making for a total of 1203.

18 Mar 09 – Day Twenty-One. As further proof of their alien abduction, Jake cites today as the 20th day. Obviously he lost a day during the abduction. No matter, they pressed onward, perilously close to the southern frontier, with a bit more wind resistance but still managed a full day (with stop) of nearly 10 hours and roughly 110 miles. Two centuries in a row!

1313 miles behind them, less than 1800 to go.

19 Mar 09 – Day Twenty-Two. A long overdue day of rest.

16 Mar 09 – Day Nineteen. Frostbite, or is it frostbike? Apparently it was a bit nippy out there. And I guess the mountains aren’t quite over yet – they topped 6000′ again and at one point managed to eek out only 14 miles in 3 hours (time to walk?).

Hilly, hilly, hilly. Yes, west Texas is hilly. How hilly? The topo somewhere in this post shows their last 10 miles on the 15th and all their miles on the 16th. All on Texas highway 118. Their camp in the culvert was somewhere around the 4500′ level. Apparently it’s high enough out there for an observatory – the McDonald Observatory (around 6700′) – and no, it’s not where you observe a McDonald’s. For the observatory trivia buffs – the McDonald houses the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, one of the world’s largest optical telescopes (433″) – things are big in Texas. They claim some of the darkest night skies in the continental US – tells you how much Jake and Marty are out in the middle of – uh- nowhere. And you’ve might have heard StarDate (usually on a PBS station). Well, next time listen closely and you’ll note StarDate is from the McDonald Observatory – cool, huh?.

37 miles cold and painful miles behind them, 1093 total.

Cannondale is recalling some of their 2009 road bikes due to missing spoke protectors. What’s a spoke protector you ask? It’s that goofy looking plastic thing on the rear wheel to keep the chain out of the spokes. I’m pretty sure that’s what the derailleur limiter screws are for but I guess that presumes someone knows how to use them. Anyway, for more info from CPSC or from Cannondale (not that any Cannondale riders would read this site).

15 Mar 09 – Day Eighteen. The winds were with them today, pushing them down the road at 25 – 35 mph (remember the loads they’re hauling). But as nice as a tailwind is, eventually you have to stop and the winds don’t necessarily stop with you. And when you’re camping and it’s windy and cold and then windier and colder – tain’t much fun. So where did they camp? Camp Dumbass (Jake’s term, not mine). You can see Camp Dumbass in the photo. Yes, it’s a culvert – that’s one of those things that fills with rain when you have flash floods. Good thing it wasn’t rainy season.

Now they both claim they set up camp in the culvert to avoid the winds but it sounds suspicious. They probably saw the alien ship that had abducted them and they were hiding.

They did manage 85 miles making the total distance in the rear view around 1057 miles, only 2043 to go.

14 Mar 09 – Day Seventeen. Apparently life on the road (or was it the alien encounter?) is starting to affect the sensibilities (and tastes) of Jake and Marty. Today, they were chased, briefly, by a vicious hound determined to inflict harm on the two cyclists. After accelerating, side by side, to 30+ mph and outrunning the snarling, rabid beast, they looked at each other and shared a common thought – it’s time to get even.

Both cyclists screeched their bikes to a halt, turned around and started closing the distance on the errant pooch. The dog, realizing that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, turned on his heels and ran, yelping feverishly, in the other direction. Not content to frighten the beastie, Jake and Marty continued pursuit pulling up on each side of the terrified mutt. While Marty steered Jake’s bike (yes, it was tricky), Jake jumped on the unfortunate pup and sunk his teeth into its flesh. Marty brought both bikes to a stop and quickly joined Jake in devouring the flesh of the former ferocious four-legged furball. Within minutes they had ripped all the meat from the bone of the beast, climbed back on their bikes and toodled on down the road, laughing maniacally. Yes, the road (and west Texas) does strange things to the mind. If you doubt it, look closely at the photo of Jake with his uncle. His uncle has been wandering west Texas for years – Jake’s only been here a day.

 
Despite the time spent chasing and temporarily sating their animal instincts by eating the beast, the two managed to cover 70 miles bringing the total distance behind them to 972 miles, plus one (probable) alien encounter and one doggie treat.

13 Mar 09 – Day Sixteen. Texas – there ain’t no place like it. It’s big, really big. And most Texans (real Texans) I’ve known are friendly and down-to-earth, but I’ve never cycled in Texas and have heard tales of less-than-friendly pickups and packs of ferocious hounds hunting spandex. But there is that one fairly famous guy who has cycled a lot in Texas. And now, two more famous cyclists, Jake and Marty, will get to cycle a LOT in Texas.

 

They entered Texas in the outskirts of El Paso, a town steeped in Spanish history and not part of the US until 1850. And like many towns on the border, it may be slowly working its way back to being a territory of Mexico. It is also one of those cities that illustrates the sharp contrast between the “haves” and “have nots.”

Their route took them very close to the border, in fact, according to SPOT, they were in Mexico for a while – I wonder if they noticed. From El Paso they continued southeast (upwind) following the Rio Grande into Fabens.

The first of many days in Texas. Mileage today – 83, total 902, almost a third of the way.

12 Mar 09 – Day Fifteen. Fortunately Jake is part owner in a bike shop. It’s fortunate (he knows how to fix flats and gets a discount on tubes) because he managed to have five flats on two wheels in 45 miles. Add to that some rather cold weather, ferocious headwinds all day and 6 hours of saddle time to yield 55 miles. Ugh, one of those days you’d rather be home in bed than on the bike. But they’re now over 800 miles (819 more or less) into this epic ride (in Las Cruces) – that’s over a quarter of the distance. Now that they’re out of the big mountains, it should get easier, right?

 

Tomorrow? Texas. Not in one day of course – maybe two.

11 Mar 09 – Day Fourteen. It’s all downhill from here – an easy ride on through Texas and more Texas and still more Texas and then a few other states and then Florida and home. Easy…so long as there are no more alien encounters.

Leaving Silver City, New Mexico it should have been a cushy ride downhill (see topo in previous post) to Deming, New Mexico. It was for a while but then fate, in the form of a wicked southeaster slowed their progess (since they were headed pretty much due southeast). But the day’s ride wasn’t all for naught. Mother nature blessed them with a mobile shower to help cleanse the road grime from their bodies. They may not have looked at it as a blessing, however, as a passing semi contributed cow urine and poop to their mobile shower.

Over the past three days they covered (not including intergalactic mileage) around 143 miles making for a total of 764 miles. Just 2336 left to go.