140 miles

Theoretically, things could’ve gotten worse than yesterday, but I was pretty sure that the only way was up today. Not that today was extremely fun, it was still some pretty miserable riding with more of the same awful conditions, but I was able to keep a good headspace all day. I had a great campsite last night. I was right under a mesquite tree in a cattle pasture. The ground couldn’t have been flatter and smoother. The moon was out and so were the stars. I’ve been able to see the moon every day for the past two weeks. I’d forgotten how noticeably smaller it gets every single night. It’s pretty awesome to be out here every single night with an unobstructed view of our celestial bodies. Something I’ve taken for granted. Last night about 10 miles before I stopped for the night I was pulled over by a sheriff. I think it’s funny how they call the police sheriffs instead of cops here in Texas. Very fitting. Anyways, he was super friendly, but he told me that he had gotten a call from someone saying that they nearly hit me. He just wanted to know let me know for my own safety. I hadn’t had any close calls all day, but about 10 minutes before I got pulled over, a truck had passed me and someone had leaned out the window, yelling obscenities and telling me to get off the road. I guess they called the sheriff and when they said that they nearly hit me, they were referring to the fact that they wanted to hit me with their car, but decided not to. The sheriff was super nice and asked me where I was going and where I was coming from. At a different time I might’ve been a little perturbed that he pulled me over just to let me know that he had gotten a call, even though I was doing nothing wrong, but after how demoralizing yesterday was, I was kind of happy to be pulled over because it was nice to talk to someone. I guess that gives you a window into how bad I was really doing, if I was excited to get pulled over. Anyways, he told me to be safe out there. He said “there’s some real crazy people out here” and he wanted to make sure I didn’t get hit on accident, or on purpose. It makes sense that there would be some people in southern Texas in these oil towns that wouldn’t be a super stoked to see me on the road, but it was funny hearing it from the sheriff. I made sure to scoot my bivvy a little further under the mesquite tree than I maybe otherwise would’ve with his warning in mind. Again, I didn’t sleep very well last night. I ate virtually nothing all day yesterday and that definitely caught up to me. When I passed through the town of Big Lake just before I stopped to camp for the night I’d picked up a bunch of tacos and burritos for dinner. I only managed to eat a couple of them, so I set an alarm for 2 AM and made myself eat the rest of them before going back to sleep. The wind didn’t die overnight. In fact, it was stronger when I woke up then when I went to went to bed. It was actually really nice to sleep in the wind. It rustled through the mesquite branches and all night it made a little whistling noise as it went through the powerlines overhead. Although I’ve essentially had a headwind for the last two weeks, this is my third day with a 20 mile an hour headwind, so I wasn’t even that bummed about it. I just got on my bike and started peddling. The last time I didn’t have a headwind feels so long ago, even though that was only four days ago. Averaging 13 miles an hour now seems like normal, can’t remember a time when I was able to go faster than that. I never thought I’d be able to block out a 20 mile an hour headwind, but today I kind of did for a while. My mind finally accepted the fact that 10 miles is probably going take an hour. It took me a long time to get here, but I’m kind of broken in now. That being said, it wasn’t fun to ride in the wind. I’d ridden the last couple of hours last night in the dark, so when I woke up, I was extremely excited and a little bit surprised to see some rolling hills. I haven’t seen hills since I was in Colorado. In addition, I was truly in the desert now. It’s been getting more and more arid for days, but now I can actually say that I’m in the desert. I’ve left the plains behind, finally. I didn’t really enjoy my time there. It was pretty gray when I woke up, I never saw the sunrise. I pressed on to the town of Ozona, and stopped at a grocery store for a resupply. It was the first time in several days that I’ve been to a grocery store and I kind of forgot how expensive it is to eat out of gas station compared to grocery store. I bought some pretty eclectic items, but was also able to pick up some freshly sliced fruit, which was fantastic. From Ozona, I knew I would be working my way through remote desert all the way to Comstock on the Mexico border. When I left the city limits of Ozona I only had 84 miles to the border town of Comstock, but with the wind, I knew that would probably take around seven hours. The pavement became a rough aggregate, similar to the roads I found in the Yukon, but somehow even worse. The gravel aggregate was almost an inch diameter at times. I felt like I was riding on a freshly graded gravel road. The clouds moved out, propelled by the wind. It was incredible to watch them fly by overhead. If the wind was 20 miles an hour on the ground, it was easily two or three times that speed several thousand feet up. I’d gotten a little bit of light rain in Ozona, which I hadn’t really been expecting. I knew the winds were blowing in a storm, but the locals had told me that the storm rarely results in rain. Every time they say it’s going to rain, it doesn’t they told me. I get the sense that almost all the precipitation around here comes from pop-up thunderstorms and all day rain showers are pretty much unheard of. The sun came out to light up the desert landscape. It wasn’t until the temperature reached 100 that I truly felt like I was in the desert. The grass was gone. The soil was now a chalky tan white. Mesquites and junipers were found in abundance with prickly pear cacti and an occasional cholla cacti poking out from the desert underbrush. There were some rolling hills, but the road soon dropped into a large wash. For about 60 miles the road wound through this wash. After about 30 miles the wash became home to an actual river. I saw a little line of blue on the map on my cycling computer, but I was still surprised when there was actually water in the river. It was beautiful water, crystal clear, a true oasis in the desert. Once I got to the river large stands of cottonwood took over the bottom of the valley floor. The walls of the valley rose up almost like a canyon with rock shelves cascading down to the river. The Mesquite and Juniper shrubs grew further and farther apart and cacti, sagebrush, and tumbleweed became a more common site. The road was littered with roadkill, primarily rattlesnakes, coyotes, and deer. I wasn’t surprised to see a lot of rattlesnakes on the road. People intentionally hit them anytime they can. I even found what I believe to be a wild pig skull. I don’t think it was a Javelina skull because the tusks were pointed up, not down, which would suggest an invasive boar. With all the roadkill, there was an abundance of vultures. Pretty much the only wildlife I saw all day was flocks of vultures. Occasionally they would circle over me as if waiting for me to drop in the heat. Not today, I’ve got places to be. It did get quite hot. At the bottom of the canyon on the asphalt my cycle computer got up to 110°. This is probably an overestimation, but it was certainly over 100°. I now have almost a gallon and a half water carrying capacity, but seven hours in 100° heat necessitates more than that. I should’ve been drinking more than I had, but with the water carrying capacity that I did have I managed to ration incredibly well and never ran out or even became thirsty. By the time I pulled into Comstock at 5 o’clock, I had one sip of water left. I timed it incredibly well. The wind, heat, and rough road service really dragged me down all day, but I was totally prepared for it. The riding was miserable, but my headspace stayed positive all day. I tried to just block it out and live in a different world. I’m really happy that I was able to mentally recover after yesterday. It’s a good sign of what’s to come. Part of the reason it was so easy to bounce back was because I had a little bit of a carrot to chase today. I also didn’t watch a dog get hit and I didn’t have to bike through a superfund site. I crossed the Canada border into United States on September 14 at 10:30 AM. GMT -6 hours. That was eight days ago and some change from today. The fastest crossing by bicycle from Canada to Mexico ever is 9 days and 13 hours. I knew that as long as I got to the border by tonight, or even before Tuesday at 12:30 AM local time, that I would set a new fastest known time (FKT) for the crossing of America from Canada to Mexico. This fastest known time was not on my radar when I started this trip. A well-known cycling personality by the name of the Vegan Cyclist set this fastest known time on September 11 of this month. As a YouTube personality with a large social media presence, he widely publicized his attempt and subsequent record. When I was in Calgary, my friend Connor had sent me a screenshot of the new fastest known time. I had realized then that as long as I kept holding my pace, I would break the fastest known time essentially on accident. It wasn’t an objective, and I didn’t chase it, but just by virtue of the mileage I am pulling every day, I broke the previous record by over 28 hours when I reached the Armistad border crossing in Armistad Village, United States at 6:43PM local time. I hope that the Vegan Cyclist will hear about my effort to break his fastest known time and help me gain a little bit of publicity through a shoutout or fundraising plug. When I started this trip, I was very adamant that I didn’t want publicity. In an ideal world this trip would be me, my bike, and the world at hand. I’m not out here for the attention, I’m out here for the challenge and the allure of what is to come. However, my thinking has changed in the past couple of weeks. I would love the opportunity to do similar projects like this down the road. However, this is no cheap trip and the logistics around it have been incredibly difficult to plan. If I want to do events like this in the future, then I need to collect sponsors and the chance of riding on salary. In order to get sponsors, I have to make a name for myself. It’s a much easier sell if I have a large following and my name is well known. I would love to go unnoticed and keep doing my rides day after day, year after year, existing just in my own small circle, but unfortunately, I don’t have a trust fund, and money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s my dream that one day I can make cycling more than just a hobby, and somewhat of a career. I of course want to finish school as well and pursue climate activism work of some sort, but my ultimate dream is to one day be paid to do projects like this full-time and incorporate climate activism into my riding, like Alex Honnold or Tommy Caldwell do with their climbing. There’s always routes around the world that I want to do: the Cape to Cape from Norway to Cape Town, the Silk Road from China to Portugal, the Around-the-World WR, the Iceland FKT, The Tour Divide, the list goes on. There are so many incredible routes and events I would love to do, but to make those dreams or reality I first need to get to Ushuaia, and second I need to build a contingent of followers and recognition around my name. In addition, the more publicity I have the easier will be to fundraise for The Honnold Foundation. Speaking of, if you enjoy the blog be sure to check out my fundraising page! Let’s try to have a positive impact on the world together!

When I arrived at the US Canada border at Armistad Village at 6:43 PM (GMT-5) I set the time of 8 days, 7 hours, and 13 minutes. I had just become the fastest person to ever bike across the United States from Canada to Mexico, which is probably the greatest achievement of my life. However, I didn’t really feel any emotion about it. I’m pretty apathetic to it. I didn’t set out from Prudhoe Bay to break this FKT. It’s kind of a cool thing to pick up along the way, but it’s not a competitive FKT and if it weren’t for the publicity the Vegan Cyclist gave it earlier this month, I never even would’ve known it existed. My goal is to get to Ushuaia in less than 84d:11hr:50min, this was just a small milestone along the way. Nobody has ever given this a serious run. I believe that with a support crew, a time trial bike, and reversed wind conditions, I could do this route in sub four days. My FKT could easily be cut in half. I had a headwind for 1,835 of the 2,000 miles on this route. That alone added at least 24 hours to my time. I hope someone does put down a real time soon. If not, I may have to come back sometime in the next couple of years to see how fast I can manage to do it. My friend and Dartmouth medical student Will Peterson just set the running FKT on the Vermont Long Trail in just under four days. During this time he slept for six hours and navigated technical terrain for the other 86 hours. Shoutout to Will. Male FKT of the year front runner? The obvious woman’s running FKT of the year (of the decade even) was just set by Tara Dowers. She just ran the Appalachian Trail in 40 days, setting the overall record. Mind boggling. I’m on a tangent though. Anyways, it’s very possible to ride from Canada to Mexico on only a couple hours of sleep. It’s the perfect distance to really push the limits of sleep deprivation. It would be an absolutely brutal effort, but I am positive that a sub-96 hour effort is doable, if not by me, then by somebody else. In the meantime, I technically have the FKT, but it doesn’t really matter at all.

From Armistad, I had just about 10 miles into the town of Del Rio. Even though I got to the border, I’m not going to cross into Mexico until tomorrow. The border crossing I’d gone to was closed for the evening anyways. It only added about a mile out and back off the main road to get to the border crossing, so I had done it for the sake of stopping the clock on the FKT, but I will officially step into Mexico tomorrow in Ciudad Acuña. I elected to stay in a hotel in the town of Del Rio, Texas. As I made my way into town, a large thunderstorm to the west blocked out the sunset, but rays of color shot around the tall clouds, and the sky was still beautiful. Looking south into Mexico I could see mountains, real mountains, far off in the distance. These are the first mountains I’ve seen since Wyoming. The terrain was getting more rolling throughout the day. I can’t wait to be back in more variable terrain. The monotony of the plaines was suffocatingly boring. I had stopped in Comstock to refill my hydration vest and water bottles. I’d also drunk about 2 L while I was sitting at the gas station in Comstock. Nonetheless, I drank over a gallon in the 30 miles from Comstock to Del Rio. I had been more dehydrated, than I realized.

On my way into Del Rio I finally felt happy to be on my bike again. Even if I don’t really care about the FKT, so my spirits were perhaps subliminally lifted a little bit, if not by the fact that I had just became the fastest person to ever bike across the US from Canada to Mexico, then by the fact that I was finally done with Texas. The headwind lightened to single digits for the first time in what feels like an eternity. The road surface was smooth again, and my legs felt all right. I had a hotel room waiting for me and I knew I was going to do some serious damage to whatever food I got at the store. Over the past three days I haven’t eaten as much as I should’ve. I stopped at a Walmart on the north side of town and absolutely loaded up. I was a little ambitious and got more food than it was really possible to eat. I kept grabbing things that looked good and before I knew it I had 3 bags of food just for dinner. When I laid out my spread at the hotel, I realized I gotten almost 12,000 cal of food just for dinner, not to speak of the snacks I got for tomorrow’s ride. Between the time that I checked into my hotel at 9 PM and checked out at, 6:45 AM, I managed to eat all of my food except for a little bit of the cheese, a couple chips, and about a quarter of the cookie dough. I tabulated my food and calorie count in the images below. I definitely ate a little bit too much. All night my stomach hurt, and I felt like I wanted to throw up for hours after dinner. Didn’t finish all my food for dinner, I had some of the breakfast the next day, but I easily had an excess of 8,000 cal in a 30 minute window for dinner. That’s probably the most I’ve ever eaten in one meal and I felt incredibly bloated. I need the calories though. In the past three days in the heat I have not been eating as much as I should. When it’s hot out, it’s a lot harder to eat because it requires that much more water to get the food down and I’ve been going through some stretches where I’ve been worried about running out of water and trying to conserve it to the best of my ability. With how bad I felt yesterday, I also just wasn’t forcing myself to eat like I should’ve been.

While I was at the Walmart a very nice man named Jose came up to me and asked me about my trip. We talked for a minute, which was really nice. He’s a cyclist himself and he snapped a selfie before we parted ways. At Walmart, I was also able to pick up some earbuds. My earbuds are my lifeline, and I already have one extra pair, but I figured picking up a second spare pair wouldn’t hurt. From my experiences in Central and South America, it is almost impossible to find earbuds that work with Apple phones. When I was in Central America, I looked for almost a week before finding a pair in a RadioShack that broke within a couple of hours. I think the earbuds I have right now are on their way out, so the prospect of facing the next 10,000 miles with only one pair of earbuds was a little bit scary. I usually get about a month and a half to out of a pair of wired earbuds before they break, but when I’m riding and thunderstorms they break a lot quicker than that.

I was in bed by 10 o’clock for the first time in weeks. I had the opportunity to get eight hours of sleep, which would be the most that I’ve gotten since I left Prudhoe. I’ve laid in my bivvy for eight hours, but I haven’t gotten a solid eight hours of sleep a single night this trip. My body seems to be functioning okay on the five or six hours that’s usually getting, but the prospect of eight solid hours of sleep in an air-conditioned room was incredibly exciting. I certainly needed it after the past three days that I’ve had. I was so happy to be done with Texas, but at the same time I was filled with a little bit of nervous excitement for Mexico. My route through North and Central Mexico are the sections that I know the least about. Both from a route, geographic, and climactic perspective, I simply don’t know what to expect. I’m a little worried about safety in the sense of getting robbed. If my bike gets stolen, that’s the fastest trip ended possible. I’m not worried about the cartels, but I’ll be biking through some pretty big cities, where theft will certainly be a concern. Every time I’m not on my bike I have to be hyper, vigilant in crossing every single t and dotting every i. Now that I’m going to be back in a foreign country there is going to be a lot less forgiveness from my mistakes. Canada can feel the exact same as the US, at least western Canada, but Mexico is going to feel completely different than anything I’ve done so far on this trip. I rode my bike in southern Mexico for two days this spring during my Central America trip and I was absolutely brutalized by the heat. I was ill prepared and didn’t know what to expect and I paid the price for that. I’m certainly more prepared this time around and my body is on another level from when I was in Mexico just a couple of months ago, but just like last time, I don’t really know what to expect. For a couple of days, I plan on taking it a little bit slower to really work on getting my feet under me and building up a little bit of confidence, particularly after being drug through the mud in Texas. When Michael Strasser, the current record holder on the Pan-American, went into Mexico, his daily average dropped just 151 miles a day through the country. I don’t think the riding will be that much different. The roads will probably be in slightly worse condition, the traffic will probably be a little more intense, and the heat might continue to build, but I am confident that the winds will not be as strong, even if the headwind does follow me. I think I can continue to put down 200 mile days simply from a mental and physical perspective. But there are more variables to riding now. It’s more than just how my legs feel. I have to plan ahead carefully and choose where I stay for the night with much more diligence. In the states and Canada, I would just pull over on the side of the road and camp anywhere. That won’t fly here in Mexico. So, even though I was incredibly excited to be leaving Texas, I was grateful for one last night in a bed on the American side of the border. I had no trouble drifting off to sleep quite quickly.

PS the tan line pictured below is from my watch