I was lucky enough to be let off the train in Alpine instead of El Paso, with Teeder. That alone put me 2.5 days ahead of schedule, and with a little elbow grease a couple days later, I was already three days ahead. Heat may very well be the hardest thing about this tour, and by being three days farther north at any given time, that makes the whole summer maybe one degree cooler. I'll take it.

I had a host in Marfa, who was flexible on dates. I could have simply ridden from Alpine to Marfa, only 25 mi, and stayed with him that night. However, I'd pass through Marfa again on the way up. I figured I'd want a good host after a day or two of riding, rather than before I've truly begun. I pushed on past Marfa, resolved to get about as far south as I could that evening, in order to make it all the way back the next day.

The route officially begins in Presidio, on the TX-MEX border. I made it there at about 8:00 in the morning, took a picture, started Strava, and headed north.

On the way down to Presidio from Marfa, I had taken a shorter, entirely paved route. On the way back up however, I took the official route, about half of which was unpaved. There was even a warning that this road was in particularly bad condition. I've seen much worse. If this is one of the worst roads on the entire route, almost all of which is unpaved to begin with, this could be a good summer.

There were only about 125 km between Presidio and Marfa, going the long way. I drank my fill of water in Presidio, then filled up all three water bottles. By the time I made it to Marfa, I was rationing. That's not a good sign. It didn't even make it to 90 F today. If I can't go that distance on three liters of water, even when it's not that hot out, I'm going to have to find a way to carry more water. Teeder’s packed to the gills as it is. This might take some creativity.

At one point, the dirt road was crossed by train tracks. There wasn’t a light or a draw gate at the intersection, but someone put up a yield sign. Yeah, ya think? Chances are the train’s not gonna yield to you.

My host, Manu, was a Quebecois construction worker who “drinks beer and rides bikes for a living.” Friendly guy! We went out to his favorite pub where I happily downed a bowl of chili on day one. Maybe this time I'll actually manage to eat a bowl of chili in every state. I magnificently failed that goal on the Pony Express.

Leaving Marfa meant going a long distance in a single day, but entirely on pavement, and it involved a 2,500-ft drop in elevation. Sounds easy, right? Well, if it hadn't been for the 50 km/hour headwind, it probably would’ve been.

Wind is devastating. For every uphill, there's a downhill. Hills at least give something back. Wind doesn't. It was my third day in a row of headwind, and the forecast called for three more after this one. This is despite the fact I was going a different direction almost every day. It didn't seem fair. 

For the first few days, the route was mostly going east, and even curving south a little bit, even though the goal is Canada. I had thought that by going east that much, I would push myself out of the desert, but the landscape didn't look much different. The soil was still mostly sandy, and naturally growing trees were still rare. It wasn't getting too terribly hot, but the sun felt strong on your skin, and it didn't cool down much at night.

The area around Big Bend was surprisingly disappointing. Big Bend National Park is highly underrated, but the Great Plains Route didn’t have much scenery. Instead, it started getting good a few days later, along the Pecos River. 

An exceptionally long push (and a tailwind, for once) got me into Sonora, the first area that didn't look like desert. In fact, it reminded me of Hill Country, especially the area around Blanco. I suppose it's roughly where Hill Country ends and West Texas begins. 

It took over an hour asking around town before I found a place to stay, mostly by chance. I was at the sheriff's office asking if they knew of a friendly church when a trooper walked up and simply said I could stay at his place.

David is a multiple-time IronMan and invited me in both out of hospitality and out of curiosity; he simply wanted to ask what bike touring is like. Shower, laundry, and a meal fit for a king. He asked for nothing in return.

The very next day, on my way to Eden, I made a mid-day stop to talk to Matt, Erica, and Paul from Hillviews, the Texas State University alumni newsletter. They were going to write a piece on me later in the month, and they wanted a live interview and some drone footage. It took about an hour out of the day, but I didn't mind, especially since they brought sandwiches.

It had rained the night before, and some of the roads were soft. In places, sloppy. Teeder got more than a little dirty, and late in the day, the front fork started failing. About the only thing that worked was leaving the lockout on, and even then, hitting washboard for a minute or two made the lockout fail as well. The only way to ride the bike normally was now on pavement.

That, combined with what looked like an imminent blowout on the rear tire sidewall, made me decide to hightail it to Lubbock as fast as I could. I didn't follow the route precisely, and instead took a few shortcuts. I was also sticking to pavement as much as possible.

The day before reaching Lubbock, I hit a piece of glass and both tires instantly blew out. Neither one of them could seal, and the slashes were too large to be patched or fixed. I'd already ordered a tire online and had it shipped to Lubbock, in order to replace the rear one with the bad sidewall, but now I'd need two tires. In my experience, not many shops carry 27.5” x 2.8” tires in stock. Some shops barely carry any 27.5” tires at all. I'd have to see what they had and hope for the best.

With both tires dead, I had no choice but to hitchhike into Lubbock. The first shop I went to had a tire in the exact right size. A little chunkier than I'd like, but I'll take it. They didn't think they could do anything for my fork though.

I got a ride to the only other shop in town, and they couldn't fix the fork either. However, they gave it a little bit of cleaning and lubing, and replaced the valve. The symptoms weren't consistent with that, but they said it was a common problem and easy to fix, so it couldn't hurt. It probably didn't 100% fix the problem, but the fork seems to be working again! With two new tires, Teeder was rolling again.

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