First full day of riding in Texas and it was a big one. After a nice night at a surprisingly nice hotel and dinner, I took off for Van Horn. There were two possible routes, one that follow a more local two lane road (20) for half the time then jumps on I10. The other choice was I10 the whole way. I took 20 south from El Paso the day before and it wasn’t a great road, lots of traffic and no shoulder. In addition, I heard from a biker a day ahead of me that there were a lot of dogs so I decided to take I10. The good part of I 10 was that it has a wide shoulder and pretty smooth most of the way. In addition I could plug in headphones and jams tunes not having to worry about traffic. The bad news was that there were definitely more hills which added about 1300 feet of climbing which I didn’t realize. In addition I was facing a bit of a headwind and crosswind for the first half which made it more difficult. About half way I stopped at the only truck stop for miles for a great Mexican food lunch. Wind shifted a bit which helped for a while but as I got closer to the end I started heading into a pretty strong headwind at a point in which I was getting pretty tired. For the last 20 miles or so I was able to ride an access road that parallels i 10 which was nice but the headwind and hills were a killer. As rides (or any endurance events) start to get hard, you start to set short term goals (rest after the next 5 or 10 miles) or things to work for “once I crest the hill life will be so much better”. One rider said he thinks of it as: it is hard, then it isn’t, always. But whatever you use, it is really about creating a mindset to succeed. Each day I ride I realize how important the mind is in achieving a physical goal. The last 30 miles were really tough. I was convinced that the last 10 were down hill but it turns out there was a big climb before the last 6 miles of downhill. I used every trick I could to plow through the wind and hills. Luckily my family and some friends knew I was in trouble and sent supportive texts! Sometimes a mindset can be made stronger by the people around you. Toughest day yet by far, but I made it!
- ellewood6