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Started: Oct 5, 2010 8:02:56
Ride Time: 8:27:58
Stopped Time: 49:26
Distance: 92.65 miles
Average: 10.94 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 93.26 miles/h
Climb: 10775 feet
Calories: 4210

A long and unpleasant day of riding. I started in a town with nothing of interest (Sanderson bills itself as the “cactus capital of Texas”), rode through 90 miles of dull, repetitive, and un-scenic scenery, and arrived in an even less interesting town (Comstock bills itself as “between Amistad and Del Rio”).

But the thing that made today memorably bad instead of just forgettably bad was the headwind. I’ve been fighting headwinds for the past five days, but today’s was especially strong and unrelenting. I spent the entire ride cursing it in my mind. If that wind had been at my back instead, I would have easily made it the next 30 miles to Del Rio. Apparently the wind is always like this at this time of year.

So, not much else to say about today other than that I am beat.

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Started: Oct 4, 2010 8:50:57
Ride Time: 7:08:57
Stopped Time: 1:19:09
Distance: 83.32 miles
Average: 11.65 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 25.67 miles/h
Climb: 2153 feet
Calories: 3630

Today I rode though some of the emptiest country I’ve seen on this ride—but empty in a peaceful way that I enjoyed. I would stop periodically during the ride today and just listen to the wind.

The day started out with my host from last night, Ron, fixing me a nice breakfast. I was a few minutes later getting rolling than I had planned, but it was worth it, and I wasn’t especially afraid of racing the sunset today.

The ride into Marathon was unexpectedly chilly, with a stiff headwind and what felt like a long, slow climb—but that might just have been the headwind talking. In Marathon, I stopped at the first café I saw for lunch, which was quite pleasant. Everybody there seemed to know what the Southern Tier is, and knew right off that I was riding it. Funny thing—in some small towns, it’s well-known, in others, not at all.

After lunch, I pushed on to Sanderson. That was the big empty part. During that leg, I noticed the rocks changed from dark red to limestone, reminding me of home.

In Sanderson, I checked into a hotel, got cleaned up, and went directly to the restaurant in town for food. There I met a group of three Southern Tier riders heading west—the first westbounders I’ve met. We traded tips on what the others were about to encounter, places to stay, that sort of thing. It was great getting to just chat with them and share the experience. They told me that at the pace I was going, I could probably knock out the part east of Austin in 10-15 days, which is encouraging.

Austin is now less than a week away, and I am hot to get there. Following is my fairly conservative estimate of where I’ll be stopping over the next several days:

Tue: Comstock
Wed: Bracketville
Thu: Leakey
Fri: Kerrville
Sat: Wimberley
Sun: Austin