precision touring, soft, pain, -rhea town

October 12, 2008

Day Twenty One

"Pain in inevitable. Suffering is optional."
- origin contested -

"In those days the best painkiller was ice; it wasn't addictive, and it was particularly effective if you poured some whiskey over it."
- George Burns -

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If you skipped yesterday's post because of the initial content, I hope you consider going back and reading it. There are a couple of important events, and in spite of the initial section the writing isn't really different than any other post.

After yesterday's bout with the Aztec Two-Step I didn't wake up until 9:00 and still felt washed out all day.

The sky was gray and overcast when we left at 10:00 and it stayed that way all day, although we saw very little of the rain that was predicted.

Klaus tours with German precision:

He has a GPS and a cyclometer mounted on his handlebars. He has an iPhone, which has wireless internet, google maps, and a host of other capabilities.

On a spreadsheet he records his daily mileage, average speed, altitude gained, total time including stops, time spent pedaling, number of breaks, and a few other items I can't remember.

In a different book, his Defect Log, he records each flat tire, broken spoke, and all of the maintenance done on his bike.

For his photography, he carries two SLR cameras, a telephoto lens, and some hard drives to store his pictures (his camera records them in raw data instead of jpeg format so they take up an enormous amount of space).

He's considering purchasing some software that will connect his GPS and cameras. It will record where, when, and in which direction his camera was pointing when the picture was taken, then show you on google maps.

Klaus also records how much money he spends, to the penny, and on what... food, camping, hotels, etc.

All of that, and he STILL finds time to pedal.

Maybe I can convince him to start blogging in his spare time.

Progress was slow today because of the 15-mph headwind and the pain in my right knee, which was gradually getting worse.

About midmorning we stopped for a break on the side of the road and a javelina sprinted away from us. I was amazed at how really fast they could move on those stubby legs. It was gone before I could get out my camera.

After seeing that the wild pig ran away from us instead of toward us, Klaus was somewhat reassured. People have been telling him horror stories about how their tusks can eviscerate a person like a can opener. Admittedly, they do look ferocious, and the sounds they make are viscerally intimidating.

There were no towns along this section of I-10, but there was a Truck Stop at exit 159 where Klaus bought some coffee and I bought some hot tea. Our timing was perfect; it began raining almost as soon as we stopped and cleared just before we were ready to leave.

We continued riding and the wind shifted slightly so that we almost had a tailwind. Almost a tailwind is better than almost a headwind, and both of them are way better than the headwind we'd been thrusting ourselves against all morning.

We stopped for our lunch break in Kent, a ghost town. When I think of a "ghost town," it conjures up Old West imagery... wooden buildings lining a dusty street, wind kicking up dust and blowing tumbleweeds across your path, and saloon doors squeaking as they swing in the breeze. I don't usually think of them as being on an interstate, but that's what we were looking at... just one old, tired, empty, graffitied, brick building disguising itself as a town. All of the other buildings (two of them, also brick) were boarded up.

My stomach still felt unsettled, but I managed to eat some cheese and crackers while looking at my map and the weather.

Kent, the non-town, is where we'll be turning south, back into a 15-mph headwind. It's the beginning of a 37-mile, 2,000-foot climb to the McDonald Observatory. Our reward for this feat? Sleeping outside in the cold with no shower or hot water.

Since we began riding together, Klaus has been regularly quoting Nietzsche, the German (of course) philosopher.

"That which does not kill me makes me harder."

I had heard the quote a number of times before but, interestingly, he used the word "harder" instead of "stronger." He explained that the original German word means "hard," "resilient," in spite of the common translation I'd heard most of my life.... “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.”

I hypothesized that the alternate meaning of "hard" may have had a hand in why we translate it as "strong," but that's probably because I have the twisted sense of humor of a 10-year-old-boy.

A 37-mile, 2,000-foot climb into a 15-mph headwind, then dry camping? That would make me harder/stronger.

Or perhaps kill me.

Sitting there in the shade of an old gas station in that ghost town I thought about the road ahead, and this is what I concluded:

I am soft.

I decided I'm not going to turn south. In spite of my hesitancy to go any town with a name that ends in "-rhea," I'll continue towards Balmorhea on I-10, which is downhill and with the wind.

Klaus is determined to turn south. He likes challenges, and he's up for this one. He even seemed excited about it. Just before we went our separate ways he said, his eyes alight,

"I have a good feeling about this."

He is hard.

We said our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch.

Rolling down the gradual grade with a tailwind giving me that extra boost, I continued towards my stop for the night. The wind and downhill were particularly serendipitous because my right knee was getting worse. By the time I stopped at the end of the day I couldn't use it at all, and any attempt to do so would produce a blinding spike of agony behind my kneecap, so I pedaled using only the muscles in my left leg.

I managed, barely, to keep it under the posted speed limit, mainly because of my painful knee.

Glancing over my shoulder at the mountains Klaus was climbing, I realized with a small amount of sadness that this will be my last long downhill (at least until my next trip!).

In Balmorhea (pop. 527), I stopped at the Eleven Inn, where I met Cecelia. She came out of the adjoining room where she had been watching the Dallas Cowboys on TV. Appearing in her mid-forties, she was about 5' 2" and thick, built like a fireplug, with the raspy voice of a long-time smoker. As the manager of the Eleven Inn, I kept wanting her to say “Our rooms go to Eleven,” but she never did.

As is my custom, I always ask the locals about the best place to eat in town.

"That's easy. Unless you want to eat at the grocery store, we've only got one place."

She pointed out a Mexican food cafe one block over, and after getting settled into my room I walked over to the Bear's Den (named after the Balmorhea Bears) where I continued to work on getting my fill of Mexican food.

While I was there, I thought I'd ask the waiter how the town got its name, but after waiting fifteen minutes to order dessert I finally just got up, paid, and left. I looked it up later and and learned that it's an amalgamation of the founders' last names: Ernest D. BALcom, H. R. MORrow, and John and Joe RHEA.

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distance: 70 miles
average speed: 13.7 mph
maximum speed: 33 mph
time on bike: 5:06:29
cumulative mileage: 1051.2 miles

Today's ride: 70 miles (113 km)
Total: 1,051 miles (1,691 km)

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