Day 9

Day 9 AM

Day 9 is significant. First it gets us through the second map of seven. It has us heading into El Paso TEXAS today. Another state but one we will be very tired of by the end. Several days in Texas with the start quite flat and then we get to the ‘hills of Texas’ but plenty of time for that. Our 9 day goal was to get El Paso airport and that worked. Today we say goodbye to Ruben and we welcome Antonio Coppola to try and take his place. Antonio will ride with the Alpha team all the way through Texas until we get him to the Houston airport at the end of the month.

Ruben will be tough to replace. His kindness and thorough understanding of the routes was invaluable. Big shoes to fill. Antonio has ridden with us before and knows his role so we should be fine. He is anxious to use this ride to raise money for MS as we are about halfway to our goal of $100,000. Pass along the link to your friends and help us get there.

Today is the wedding anniversary of Mike and Shelly Halstead. Mike left her 26 envelopes with a message in each signifying their 26 years of blissful marriage. Does she open them all at once or let the gift linger throughout the day? What would you do?

Goodbye New Mexico!

PM recap

Texas here we are! Over 900 miles in and we are done with California, Arizona, and New Mexico. We made it today with a 110 mile ride to El Paso. We are right on schedule. The next 4 days are map 3 of 7. On the 13th night we will be in Del Rio, Texas. Outstanding Alpha Team. Today’s highlights:

This was a flat ride today with little headwinds. The only real climb was into El Paso proper. We finally averaged some decent miles per hour. All in all a solid day of cycling.

There was one mile long road with pecan trees on both sides that created a complete canopy. Incredible.

We had a stop at the side of a road and three identical dogs checked us out. We were there ten minutes and the dogs were like statues.

Cycled past many huge pecan groves and quite a bit of cotton. Made me think of Eli Whitney and how he invented the cotton gin but couldn’t figure out exactly what that did.

Got a chance to see the bridge to Juarez, Mexico. Famous in all the cartel movies.

Took a bike trail that ended in a field with no warning. Did a bit of off road riding to escape.

Jane and Ruben rode hard all morning and then Jane went to the airport and swapped Ruben (back to work) for Antonio Coppola who will ride with us to Houston. Antonio’s dad asked him where he was going and when he heard he gave him a very quizzical look. Antonio is also sharing this blog with all his friends to help raise MS awareness.

So 9 days in how many flats total on the 4 bikes? If you are a subscriber you can guess. And subscribing is easy and free.