You have to admire some people’s resiliency. As an example, we have one rider who yesterday, during our 92 mile adventure, was forced to abandon his ride 13 miles short of our final destination. This was due to the fact that he felt his body listing to one side, and was unable to unclip out of his pedals when he wanted to, forcing two (2) unplanned “crash landings” onto the rough asphalt. Bleeding and a little “fuzzy”after the falls, the course directors asked that he join the SAG wagon for the remainder of the ride, so he could be watched more carefully. As he walked up to camp, we saw that his knee was significantly bruised and bleeding, and his arm appeared to have been bruised and potentially out of joint. That was yesterday. Today, when he woke up, he asked that one of the course directors take him back to the spot where he abandoned his ride the day before. With the mechanic accompanying him along the way, he rode the remaining 13 miles he missed the day before, in 37 degree temperatures, with the same 12-15 MPH headwind we had yesterday. The best part of the story: The man is 78 years old.
Since today was a well-deserved rest day, we “slept in” until 6:00am, and scrambled to get dressed in the completely unheated, ice-cold gym. As indicated above, the temperatures dropped into the mid 30’s, and the winds persisted for the majority of the day. The bad news is that the weather is supposed to drop even lower tomorrow, as we embark on our planned 73 mile ride into El Paso. On a completely unrelated note, the “food truck” that our cook drives experienced a water pump malfunction, preventing him from driving over 30MPH in order to ensure that the truck did not overheat, which was the main reason why we ate Domino’s Pizza last night. Reportedly, they were able to “patch” the water pump, hoping to make it to make it to El Paso where they can get the pump completely replaced. I am sure that Lewis and Clark had the same types of experiences as we are having, right?
After doing some preventative maintenance on our bikes this morning, our smaller group of four (4) which am currently being allowed to participate in (thanks David, Sean, and Jim Bob) walked to the Dollar General store, which appears to be the only store in about a 25 mile radius. The big winner at Dollar General was one of our Brits, David, who discovered a small Batman pillow, which he believes will work better under his head than his bag of dirty laundry he had previously been using. Why he chose Batman over Spider Man, I’ll never know!
After the Dollar General experience, we walked a block to the town’s only restaurant, Mama Casitas, where we met Mama herself and enjoyed some home-made tortilla chips and authentic Mexican food. A number of the other riders went on an excursion across the border into Mexico to eat at the “Pink Restaurant”, however I believe our decision to remain “state-side” and enjoy Mama’s was a good one. From there, we returned to camp, sorted our laundry into bins, and hunkered down in anticipation of another very cold and blustery New Mexico night. Say a prayer that the winds die down just a little, so our passage will be a little easier than yesterday! Our hope is to once again employ our “pace line”, taking turns at the front of the group to help blunt the effects of the wind.
The Walking Machine 