215 miles

Okay, I am back. I don’t want to jump the gun and get ahead of myself, but I think that I have outrun the woes that plagued me in Texas. There are good days and there are bad days. Tomorrow could be the best day of the trip, or it could be the worst day of the trip. I have no way of telling. However, good days tend to lend themselves to good days and bad days tend to learn themselves to bad days. If you were to rank my days and plot them on the Y axis with time on the X axis, it would roughly create a sine wave. It’s impossible to tell the amplitude, wavelength or frequency of the next wave, but it is sure to come. Right now I am absolutely on a positive slope. Yesterday was good, today was fantastic. I hope tomorrow is even better. I love the quote, “better than yesterday, but not as good as tomorrow.” It’s not always true, we all know progress isn’t linear, but you can make it true in your own head. That is, you can convince yourself that tomorrow will be better even if the numbers don’t show it. The power to make a day good is always in my own head. Certainly the conditions can be prime for a good day or a bad day, but ultimately it’s up to me to decide how my day is going to go. I’ve been thinking about the wind a lot. How incredible is it that my biggest problem in life is a little bit of wind? That is true privilege right there. I thought about that a lot yesterday in preparation for the next time I had a headwind. Good thing I did that yesterday; I had a headwind for the afternoon today. What an absolutely fantastic day on the bike. The conditions helped me have a good day, but like I said, I woke up and set out with resolve to make sure that I made it a good day.

As I planned, I rolled out of bed at 3:15 AM. I didn’t think that getting up was going to be hard, and it wasn’t. The hardest part about getting up is putting on my socks and shoes. They’re absolutely rank and there’s nothing I can do about it. I wash my socks every single time I stay in a hotel room, but , there’s not much I can do about the shoes and the socks are a lost cause. At this point, I don’t even know if it’s ethical for me to stay in a hostel because those shoes smell atrocious. I rolled out of the hotel and into the streets of Monclova. it was pretty awesome to be riding around town at 4 AM. I’ve never ridden in a city like Monclova when everybody else is asleep. Normally these roads are thriving with life. There wasn’t a soul. Monclova is a very large city and I was on the main road out of town, but I saw maybe 10 cars within the city limits. It was weird to see the city so quiet. It was a little bit eerie, but I kind of liked it. It was nice to be able to ride and really take in the physical attributes of the city without having to worry about, the traffic, the dogs, or the pedestrians. The sun doesn’t rise till almost 7, so I had three hours of riding in the dark. The entire time I was working my way up 1% to 2% grade the road up a great sloping valley. The road was in great condition and I had a nice wide shoulder all to myself. Although waking up hadn’t been hard, I expected myself to get a little bit sleepy right before the sun came up. As expected, I felt my eyes getting heavy at around six just as the first light of the sun became discernible on the horizon. 30 minutes later when the sky started to noticeably brightening, my serotonin started firing, and I woke up naturally. It was mostly clear out, but the mountains were hidden behind clouds and I found myself cycling through a fog bank. Before the sun came up I’d gone up 1500 feet in elevation and the landscape was definitely a little bit different. It truly felt like I was in the desert. There were still junipers, but they’re not as tall, only about five or 6 feet in height, shorter than some of the cacti. As the sky turned blue and pink with an orange monochrome filter on the clouds, the fog parted, and I was gifted a magnificent view as a reward for the labors of my climbing that morning. Directly in front of me a tall mountain ridgeline blocked my path. To the east a solitary peak was veiled low clouds. It had a cloud just sitting on the summit and when the sun came over the horizon, the sunlight backlit the cloud so it looked like the mountain was wearing a halo. Smaller clouds were rolling off the summits directly in front of me, and they were also turned into orange cotton candy as the sun came up. From a distance, it looked like the road must go straight into the mountains and then just end. I checked my cycling computer and was incredibly excited to see that the straight road turned squiggly. The road did not end, obviously, it worked its way up a dry river bed into the mountains. I watched the sunrise as I begin my first climb of over 1000 feet in several thousand miles. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember my last climb that was over 1000 feet. I think my last 1000 foot climb was at mile 50 of the Alaska Highway. That was a really long time ago. As the road worked its way up in elevation I came into a magnificent mountain valley. There was a huge peak off to the east that must’ve been at least 10,000 feet tall. It was blocking the first light of sun, so I got a second sunrise as the sun worked its way over this massive peak and started illuminating the mountain walls all around me. I just could not wipe the smile off my face. I was so happy. The weather was fantastic, there was no wind, I was back in the mountains, and I was feeling great. What a fantastic morning! Somehow, the descent out of this mountain range was even better. I passed through a little canyon on the way out of the mountains, so the sun was once again hidden by the mountains, and as I emerged on the south side of the range the sun once again peaked out behind a line of crags stretching off to the east. There was some fog, and the sunlight filtering through the moisture gave everything an extraordinary aire. These mountains were really rocky with some crags that almost reminded me of Patagonia, just significantly more chossy. I was giddy with joy as I descended out of the range. Before me lay a wide open valley easily 20 miles across. On the other side of the valley I could see another set of mountains, even larger than the ones I had just punched through. The road turned straight again, and I beelined my way towards the next set of mountains. For the past week or so I’ve had a really painful saddle sore that has been preventing me from using my aero bars. the slight shift in my hips from upright to aero position causes considerable pain down there. Yesterday it got a little bit better and today I was finally able to use my aero bars for longer than a minute at a time. The great valleys here look flat, but they never are. It’s very deceptive. They are always sloped at about 1 or 2 percent. I thought it was flat, but it must’ve been a downgrade because with no wind I was averaging almost 30. I felt phenomenal. I got to the other side of the valley and started climbing once again. It clouded in a decent bit as I climbed up to the town of Saltillo. Besides Calgary and maybe Lubbock, Saltillo is the largest city that I’ve been around. It’s the sister city of Monterey, which was just about 50 km to my east. I knew they were going to be beautiful mountains because I’ve seen a picture of the Monterey soccer stadium and it’s one of the most beautiful in the world because it is framed in giant peaks. However, I didn’t realize how awesome the mountains here actually are. I climbed my way up to 4,500 feet then popped out into the valley where Saltillo lies. Directly in front of me I was greeted by Cerro San Raphael. A 12,000 foot monstrosity rising almost straight up from the edge of the city. I stopped for an early lunch at 11, which felt fitting since I started at 4 and hadn’t stopped yet. I sat on the curb and looked out over Saltillo at the mountains. Saltillo itself didn’t seem very interesting. The only part of the town I saw was the Eastern outskirts, I managed to skirt downtown, but everything was just massive industrial parks. Some of the biggest warehouses I’ve ever seen in my life. The tops of all the mountains were shrouded in clouds, but that almost added to their allure. It left a sense of mystery as to what could be up there. How far did they go? From the few peaks that were poking out, I could tell that there seem to be a belt of forest, true trees, probably around 8000 feet. Above 10,000 it looked like there was no vegetation of none other than some grasses perched on rocks. Since I was up at elevation, it wasn’t as hot, but it felt just as hot because the sun was absolutely beating down on me. Every day I get a little bit closer to the equator so the sunlight becomes more direct and up elevation. There is of course less atmosphere to block the UV, so I really felt like I was getting burned. I reapplied my sunscreen until I was white again. My tan has built up very well, but it’s still no match for the unfiltered sun. I’m obviously never out running the gringo allegations here with my white complexion, poor Spanish, and bike spandex, but I’m certainly not doing myself any favors walking around with half rubbed in sunscreen, looking like Casper the ghost. When I was putting on sunscreen, some of the gas station attendants started laughing at me. I certainly hope I can find more sunscreen when this tube runs out. I don’t think it’ll be an issue, but these guys seemed to think that it was an entirely foreign concept. My nice relatively quiet road quickly turned into a two lane divided highway. No bike signs started popping up everywhere. Of course I do not actively want to break the law, but I really had no other choice. There was only one road over the pass that I needed to take and it was this highway. From Saltillo I climbed 3,000 feet up to 7,300 feet in elevation. The whole time I was riding on what is essentially interstate. There was a no bike sign consistently every 3 km. I was pretty nervous about getting pulled over and I didn’t know what I would do if they told me I couldn’t bike on the road. I’d kind of be out of options. There was a tollbooth as I was leaving the city. I was almost certain they were going to turn me away at the tollbooth. This happened outside of Sabinas yesterday. Then, they had said I couldn’t take the road, but luckily there had been an alternate route that only added about 3 km onto the bike ride. Today there was no alternate route. If they turned me away, it would’ve added at least one hundred kilometers. When I pulled up to the booth, the lady did a double take and looked absolutely bewildered to see me. She opened her mouth to say something, but I just reached out and slid a $10 USD bill in her hand and gave her a wry smile. She slowly looked around and then quietly pressed the button to open the gate. I gave her a little nod and said thank you quietly before pedaling on. I felt a little bit douchey bribing her with my American dollars. It feels like a very pretentious thing to do, but it was a win for both of us, so at the end of the day, I think it was the right decision. I really enjoyed the climb and even though the road was very busy, it made a lot of very tight turns and wound its way straight up this canyon. There’s so many trucks here that go about 10 miles an hour up these steep climbs that the road was four lanes on the uphill side to accommodate for all the different speeds of traffic. There was also a really big shoulder, almost 20 feet wide in spots. A lot of trucks break down so I guess the road builders had accounted for this. I passed six or seven trucks on the side of the road with their hoods open. At the top of the climb, I had a great view of the mountains around, which still seemed incredibly large even from 7,000 feet in elevation. I only descended about 1,000 feet before bottoming out into the next valley. Throughout the descent, there were more no biking signs. I was worried it was going to be this way all the way to Matehuala and perhaps even beyond. I had a couple reasons not to be as worried though. First of all, I knew that drivers here wouldn’t be reporting me to the police like they had in the US. If I got busted, it was going to be because the cop randomly drove by me while I was riding, it wasn’t going to be because someone called in complaining. Second, the cops here have much bigger issues to deal with than a cyclist on the road. I’m not their top priority. Even if they told me I couldn’t bike on the road what were they going to do about it? There was no way for me to get off the interstate since there were no other roads around. It was a very rural area. Still, I wasn’t super stoked on the idea of being on the road. Right at the bottom of the pass, a cop passed me. The cops around here almost always drive with their lights on. But when I looked back initially and saw the lights, I thought I was screwed. He drove by me and just honked. I think that was his way of saying, “get off the road idiot, but I’m not gonna do anything about it.” I was a little bit worried that he might just be going up the road to wait for me since there wasn’t much of a shoulder. It would’ve been dangerous for him to pull over. About a mile later I came to another toll plaza. There was a line of trucks to get through and I saw the cop on the other side of the plaza in line. I knew that even if he wasn’t going to give me grief while he was driving, if he saw me stopped, he would definitely say something. I also didn’t want to run the risk of getting stopped by one of the toll workers. So I glued myself to the side of a semi as it passed through the Mexican version of the EZ-Pass lane of the toll. The toll is only about 50 US cents, and since I paid $10 at the last one, I didn’t feel at all bad about sneaking my way through this one. As it turns out, on the other side of the toll the road became bicycle friendly again. Well, not bicycle friendly, it was still a two lane divided highway, but there were no more “no biking” signs. On the other side of the toll there were a lot of food vendors and I grabbed some grapes and three bananas from one of the ladies working there. I’m pretty sure I got totally ripped off, but I still only spent about two dollars so I wasn’t really going to argue over that. I started working my way south east down my new valley. I was a little disappointed to be met with a 10 mile an hour headwind. I had hoped to leave the headwind in Texas, but it seems that my old friend has returned for more fun. It gradually grew to about 15 miles an hour by the time the sun set, but I had been having such a magnificent day in the mountains that virtually nothing could bring my mood down. It was a little bit annoying, especially since I wanted to pad my mileage in the flat valley after climbing all day, but ultimately it didn’t affect me much at all.

I stopped for a brief break in the town of San Rafael. I checked my mileage log and realized that I am now over a third of the way through with this journey. That’s crazy. While it feels like I’ve been out here for so long, it does not feel like I’ve done a third of this trip. I’ve been gone so long, but it also feels like I’ve been gone a couple weeks. I mean, I have only been gone a couple of weeks. This is my 25th day and I’m already a third of the way there. I’m actually well over 1/3rd now. I was a third of the way this morning. Also, that’s a third of the way assuming that this route is 14,000 miles. In reality, my total mileage will probably end up being closer to 13,700 miles. That’s a very small change, but that’s a full day and a half off the riding time that I calculated out if this route is 14,000 miles. The hardest miles are ahead of me. It’s the rainy season in central America and the Andes loom, awaiting my presence. But there’s also the remote promise of wicked tailwind in the Patagonia region to carry me home the last 2000 miles. On the flipside, that could be 2000 miles of 60 mile an hour headwind. Considering my luck so far on this trip, a headwind that whole section is not out of the question. But either way, that section is at least pretty flat. Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s work on getting out of Mexico before we even think about Central America much less South America. I promised not to talk about world record pacing until I was at least 3000 to 5000 miles through this journey because it was a fruitless effort in the early days of my trip. Tomorrow I’ll hit 5000 miles, so I think perhaps tomorrow we can talk about some numbers.

For about 100 km I worked my way through this flat valley floor past the town of Gallena. I went through a military security checkpoint and was able to bypass the huge line that had backed up behind the checkpoint. The valley turned more south and my headwind became a sidewind again. As the sun set, I went up a low-grade climb and turned more southwest. I entered into a new valley and since the winds were running from the east, and this valley was pointed south west, it started to funnel the winds in more of a side tailwind than a side wind. The valley also begin to slowly drop out. So as the sun sank I was treated to some nice easy miles. After going through the pass, throughout the early afternoon the mountains had gotten progressively smaller. There were still 8,000 to 10,000ft peaks around me, but they weren’t quite as big as Cerro San Raphael. These peaks were entirely covered with vegetation. I was incredibly surprised at how green everything is. I think it’s the rainy season here which would make sense because everything seems to be in bloom. There are thousands and thousands of butterflies everywhere. Wildflowers line the road and all the sagebrush and tumbleweed is a bright youthful green. It’s so incredibly beautiful and it’s all contrasted with these red and tan rocks. Since I was still up at 6000 feet the temperature was totally manageable and even though I had a headwind, it made it feel all that more pleasant to ride. The high at 6000 feet was only about 80°. After riding in the hundreds for the past couple of days this felt absolutely amazing. Shortly before sunset I had started to feel a little tired which I’d been expecting. The 3 AM wake up is tough, but I think I’m going to adjust to it just fine. Riding in the morning wasn’t all that bad. I like riding in the daylight more just so I can see things better, but the miles in the dark sometimes feel free. Those hours can pass by incredibly quickly.

As the sun set behind the mountains, I at first was a little bit unimpressed by the colors. Only after dipping below the horizon did the sun’s rays begin to paint the sky in its full brilliant orange. It was the perfect desert sunset. There were a couple clouds, but for the most part it was just uninterrupted sky. The light flooded around the mountains creating a really cool optical effect. Beams of vibrant light shot around the peaks like lasers on a blue background. It was almost totally dark by 7:15, which meant that it was time for me to pull over and go to sleep. I really didn’t want to stop biking. I felt great and the road was very busy with trucks which gave me an artificial tailwind. I know that sounds ridiculous; wanting the road to be busy with semis to get an artificial tailwind, but I’ll take any help I can get. Overall today was just fantastic. I really enjoyed every moment on my bike. I dealt with the headwind well and I am super happy to have my first 200 mile day in Mexico. It wasn’t necessarily all that easy of a ride either. There were a lot of flat miles, but overall I finished 4000 feet higher in elevation and when I started and still managed to average 16.8. So far, I’m loving Mexico. I have a couple days of sun left, and then I expect it will start raining as I get closer to Central America. But for now I am enjoying the desert much more than I thought I might. Over the course of the next couple of days, I will begin to my edge my way through larger and more dangerous cities. I’m not particularly looking forward to working my way through the outskirts of Mexico City. I’ve heard horror stories of all sorts from cyclists about getting robbed around Mexico City. Hopefully my mileage lines up so I can just stay on the main road and plow my way straight through the city to give myself the highest odds of staying safe. I have a bike shop stop planned for myself in Puebla, Mexico, so that is my next big milestone. That’ll probably be in three days from now. To be honest, I don’t know how many miles I have until Guatemala. I’m trying to just ride as best I can every single day and not worry about it. It’ll be fun to get to Guatemala though because I will know the next thousand miles of road having ridden them in the spring. What an exciting time in my life. When I set out in this journey, I knew there’d be a lot of highs and a lot of lows, but I can’t believe how many more highs there have been than lows. I’m a third of the way through this trip and I can say that I’ve only had two absolutely miserable days, one pretty rough day, and one scare with hypothermia on day seven. Other than that, pretty much every day has had some really incredible moments. I really did think this was going to be way more miserable than it has been. When I was in Texas it felt like the misery was there to stay, but I knew it wasn’t. More misery lies in wait for me somewhere up the road, but it’s never there to stay.