Day Twenty
Today started at about 3:00 am when rain on the tent fly woke me up. The first rain of the trip, after nearly 3 weeks of riding. I've been watching the weather reports for several days, so it wasn't a surprise. What I have been bracing for today is a combination of steady rain plus a strong, adverse wind. The wind has been with me for a couple of days already, and now the rain has arrived.
I rose before dawn to prepare for the day, knowing I might need the entire day's ration of daylight.
My Go/No-Go spot, the first place I could stop if things were not going well, was Seminole Canyon State Park, 80 miles to the east on US 90. My planned stop was the Comstock Motel in Comstock, an additional 8 miles. Not a big difference in mileage, but if I was soaked, cold and tired, for only 8 more miles I'd get the amenities of motel instead of a sleeping bag on the ground. My stretch goal was the Del Rio Motel 6, recommended by Roger and Laura, whom I met yesterday. An important factor in deciding where to stay would be what food is available, because I didn't have much and grocery stores of late have been few, with sparse shelves.
Two main stories today, the weather and how it effected...(at this moment, your writer closed his iPad and fell asleep)...and now, some hours later...
Three main stories today (I'll still call it today, okay?), the weather, the ride, and its effect on my personal person-ness, (there's a joke in there)—my hard-earned epiphany, which I knew was coming, just not when or how, and my thoughts on exactly why this stretch of the world is such a confused mess..
I've been watching, with foreboding, the deterioration of the stable and favorable weather I've enjoyed for 19 days of this ride—rideable temperatures, generally favorable winds, and not a drop of rain. Today's temperatures were perfect, but the rain hit hard and the wind, until late in the day, was brutally oppositional. I slept poorly, with tent pitched in a camping spot between an all-night trucker's highway and the Southern Pacific Railroad with trains running all night. My coffee for the day was just one Starbucks Via. The most uncivilized part of this country is the lack of coffee—there was none in Sanderson and nothing but a Keurig Cup another 88 miles down the road in Comstock. See? Just brutal.
The rain was like being soaked with a garden sprayer, billions of soft-hitting droplets. It was spraying from ahead and to the left, from the northeast. Okay, not so bad, because what I had forgotten was that this kind of rain where I come from is cold, and here, it is warmish. I don't have enough clothing to withstand a cold rain and that concerned me. But as long as I was moving, I was generating enough heat to stay warm enough.
I have a lightweight OR (Outdoor Research) rain jacket that is my new best friend. It went on before I got out of the tent. It came off when I unsaddled for the last time, in twighlight. It's a trim fit, perfect for cycling in wind. The hood tucks down while riding and comes out for breaks in the rain and wind. The hood s big enough to go over a climbing helmet, for which it's made, or a cycling helmet. Nice. Fat Mark was too big around the middle to wear this jacket. Fit Mark zips it up smoothly and can still breath inside. Very nice.
The wind was forecast to build through the day, and the forecast held up. The wind built. It was coming over my left shoulder, the traffic side, and as a truck would pass, I had to brace to not get sucked left into the sudden vacuum created a by a vehicular wind break careening by at 70 miles an hour. The forecast also said that through the day, the wind would back slowly from the east-northeast to the north. The map said my road would steadily veer from the eastbound to southbound. Combined, these factors meant that eventually this headwind would become a tailwind, and my speed over ground would slowly increase from 5-10 miles per hour to 14-20 miles per hour. Getting through the middle of the day would set me up to fly through the end of the day, beyond Comstock and on to Del Rio.
If I could stay in my sustainable range of power, I'd last long enough to finish with a flourish, making today my highest daily miles. I'm riding the science. Speaking of which, an interesting thing to note is that, on this 8th straight day of hard desert riding, my power production, at the pedal, is slowly decreasing. I know I'm stronger, especially my heart. But until I get a recovery day, I'm just not able to put it down like I had been. My hypothesis is based on this: I cannot push the pedals hard enough, for more than a few minutes, to get my heart rate much above 105 beats a minute. What this means is that about 105 bpm, my heart rate can feed my muscles at near their maximum sustainable output. They just can't eat any faster. My circulatory system is getting really strong, and my muscle's capacity for work has declined. 105 bpm is all that's needed to take away the maximum CO2 and exhaust products my muscle cells can generate. What will my power rate be when I'm rested enough to utilize circulated energy and dispose of cellular waste at 160 bpm? I'll bet it's higher than I've been about to produce in, what, three decades?
There was not a single service of use to a traveler for 88 miles, from Sanderson to Comstock. That's a whole lot of nothing for many hours. There used to be towns along the way but now they are just relics. I'll get to that below. I packed plenty of water, but food stocks are getting low. I have enough calories but the food choices are getting boring.
Okay, cutting to the chase, I got to Comstock, and looking around, felt inspired to not stay. I bought my Keurig coffee and a premade sandwich, called Joan to say I'm pushing to Del Rio, but my phone was dying and my backup battery is dead, so I'd be turning my phone off so I have some juice if I really need it. Actually, I’d had the phone off for stretches already, and it was revelatory to ride without the constant data feed that tech provides. It was kind refreshing so I'm going to do more of that.
Today was another kind of crux day. It's the first day I cried. My eyes filled, my chest tightened and my breathing just heaved. I kept pedaling, blinking hard to see. It's about time, because having this experience is a big reason for the ride in the first place.
Those of us who do adventure, who teach it, can get into a shtick where we treat it all with blithe indifference, like it's an everyday thing. This is because it's easy to look like we are adventuring, when in fact, we are just repeating a routine. As soon as something becomes a routine, it's no longer adventure. It may look amazing and risky to others, but in reality, it's not adventure, it's skill and practiced routine. Which, by the way, is great to have, just don't call it "adventure".
Case in point: I may get on a plane to go someplace to do something completely different from anything I've done. It may be climbing a mountain, or it may be going to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. I'm anxious. It's a big deal for me either way, and I'm at the edge of my experience and my comfort zone. But it's just Paris, right? Doesn't matter. The experience is new to me and I'm more than a little uneasy about the future. The plane I've boarded has a flight crew. I bought my ticket knowing that I've hired that flight crew for whom this trip is the complete opposite of an adventure. My confidence in their skill is absolute. They are up there at the front of the plane, filing plans, talking on the radio, flipping switches, all in a day's work. But do I want this flight to be an adventure? As in "Hello, this is Captain Phillipe from the flight deck. We have started our descent to de Gaulle airport so it's time for the lottery to see which of you passengers will come up here and land this airplane. A winner! Will the passenger in seat 37B please come forward! We promise that your landing will be interesting. Please fasten your seatbelts and thank you for flying Air France". Hell No.
So the tears flowed when I was finally—at 1,400 miles into a 3,200-mile bicycle trip—near the end of my rope, the place of fear and desperation that I routinely put people when I coax someone onto a high ropes course or at the oars for the first time on a Class 3 rapid. Or even, for a 15-year-old, shopping for the first time for 12 people, for a week. It's anxious, scary work to go up against the unknown, with unknown consequences, for the first time. I'm looking a 88 miles of unknown and I'm not happy about it.
This is something that smug experts can easily forget, whether we are teachers, guides, supervisors, or most dangerously, parents. Being judge, jury but hopefully not executioner, to people in your care, is a huge responsibility. And when I forget this, I'm no longer helping, I am tormenting. At this moment, blinking back tears to see the road, I've been on my own learning edge, in my own care, for three straight weeks of painful weirdness, and I'm officially wigged out.
This feeling is what the learner feels when the learning is really, painfully, happening. Remember. And never disrespect a learner, or yourself when you are learning, the hard, painful lessons you must learn to become the next, better version of yourself. That's the real work in this life and is surely sucks when you're stuck in the middle of it. Adventure leaders hold the space that allows people to suffer learning without it blowing up so badly that people get really hurt, on the outside, or on the inside. On this ride, I am holding that space for myself, but that doesn't make it any easier to be in it. It's hard.
The dereliction of the West Texas built landscape—houses, businesses, whole towns—stretches for hundreds of linear miles. People came, tried hard, failed, discarded their dreams, and abandoned their structures to rot and crumble in the wind, sun, and withering heat that are the invariable victors out here. A few people figured it out by learning to really like West Texas; others adapted by learning to hate it and everything else—really leaning into spite can make one strong enough to get through very hard days.
That's how my 20th century mind interpreted what I just bicycled through, dreams that seemed "big" but in reality where just dumb, followed by backbreaking hard work, inevitable failure, and abandonment. And of course, abandonment is exactly the opposite of taking responsibility for your results. Because when they left, they left all their stuff just lying around. We get agitated when people throw a beer can or Cheetos bag on the ground. So why is it not littering when a whole population walks away and leaves their buildings, machinery, and all their garbage to just sit by the roadside, rotting, for decades? It's not littering because it is considered a "property right" to leave an incredible mess on land you have a deed to. That's messed up. And yet, we are supposed to lament the broken people and their broken dreams. Feel sorry for them. Well, I just don't.
And here is how my 21st century mind sees it. The 20th century, the entire world we are trying to defend, live up to, and sustain, will be seen in the not-to-distant future, as a transition era whose job was to take humanity from the time of horsepower (literal horsepower) and oil lamps to the time of massively networked integrated microcircuitry, and integrated, cooperative people. The 20th century was not meant to stick around, it can't stick around, it must be abandoned, and West Texas is all the proof we need that moving past the 20th century is as inevitable as it is good. West Texas is a leading indicator that humanity is on track to let go of some used up and antiquated thinking, and embrace better ways and better times.
I will never bicycle West Texas again—I say this now because it still feels like Type 3 fun: looked fun, wasn't fun, and on reflection, it seemed dumb to think it could ever be fun. What a trying and overpowering week it has been, and right now I see no reason to repeat it, at least on a bike. But as is true with so many people who feel they lingered a little too long in a place they didn't belong, West Texas has changed me.
There's a book to be written here, so when I get around to writing it, I'll ask you to read it. It will have a cheery ending. But that's all I can say about it now, because I have a bunch of work to do to get ready for the next leg of the Ride for Kids, my bicycle ride across America.
Oh, and by the way, if you haven't given any money yet, it's not a ride for kids yet. So, pony up, please. Donate now.
I’d love to hear from you. Donate to the ride and send along your words of encouragement and tell me why getting kids outside matters to you.
