Sun, 10/18/2025; 7 miles, 163 feet of climb
I LOVE REST DAYS! I didn’t used to take them, but they are so helpful to renew mind and body.
And spirit, too — I went to church this morning at Grace Christian Fellowship in Alpine. I knew some of the songs! I met Jorge and Daphnie and their newborn baby, Jorge IV. There was a guest evangelist speaking today, so it went kind of long, at 2.5 hours. I’m glad I wasn’t trying to get back on the road today.
l like to stay completely off the bike on rest days, but being 3.5 miles away from town, I didn’t want to walk. It was also handy to have panniers. After church I went to the first grocery store in 240 miles and stocked up. I bought FRUIT for today, and snacks for the next few days, as grocery stores will be slim pickings in the next 230 miles to Del Rio.
Alpine is a cool little town…literally! At 4475 feet of elevation, it’s much cooler than the big Texas cities. The old railroad depot downtown still has daily Amtrak trains coming through. Downtown buildings display some vivid murals depicting its history.
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I spent some time planning out the next few days. When my brother Jim and I started doing bike trips a half century ago, we didn’t do much detailed planning. We just hopped on our 10-speeds with heavy camping gear, and rode 80-100 miles a day wearing running shorts and tennis shoes.
For some unknown reason, it seems harder at age 65 than it did in my teens. So I need to plan realistically.
I do have two secret weapons now compared to decades ago: financial flexibility to stay in hotels when they are available (campgrounds are harder to find), and schedule flexibility to do shorter days (by cutting up the longer ones and adding more days when needed).
However, in this part of West Texas, all the time and all the money in the world won’t help solve the basic problem: distance between towns. Tomorrow I have to bike only 35 miles to Marathon. But from Marathon to Sanderson is 62 miles, and from Sanderson to Langtry is 67 miles. There’s absolutely nothing between them.
If I had a tailwind, it would be fine, as it was on Day 5. However, the forecast calls for some pretty stiff headwinds. In particular, Sanderson to Langtry on Wednesday will feature 10-20 mph headwinds, and Langtry to Del Rio shows eye-popping 20-30 mph headwinds on Thursday!! Direction of the wind can absolutely make or break your day on the prairie.
So I’m a little concerned right now about how that will go. If I can only average 7.7 mph like I did in Day 2, that would make for a really really long day on the bike — 8 or 9 hours! I’m not sure my saddle sores could handle that, given how they were screaming after only five hours.
I may be doing some hitchhiking if it gets close to dark on those days. Fortunately, everyone here drives a pickup truck.
I cut off a day by combining two days with yesterday‘s tailwind, but I might need to add a new stop between Langtry and Del Rio. That is the one place in the next 230 miles where there is a town I was planning to ride through, Comstock, but might have to stay overnight in now because of the headwinds.
When I was planning the schedule, I was thinking that after ten days, I’d have no problem riding 64 miles with 1000 of climb. But a 20-30 mph headwind makes me wonder if I can even make it 32 miles to the halfway town! 🙁
But enough planning for now — I need to go back into the hot tub again.
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TRANSLATIONS/BACKGROUND: “TEXBIRD” = Texas Bike Ride, my own nickname for the 800 miles in the middle of Southern Tier Bicycle Route, from El Paso to Austin, using maps from ACA (Adventure Cycling Association). This will complete my ride of the Southern Tier from the Pacific Ocean (San Diego) to the Atlantic Ocean (Jacksonville). (I biked the 1500 miles from Austin to Jacksonville in March 2024, and the 1000 miles from San Diego to El Paso in February 2025.)
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LINKS:
Old-fashioned BLOG if you have friends who don’t use Facebook:
“Old Scouter” Facebook page if you want to follow big adventures with more pictures and video clips (but not unrelated personal posts):
“Old Scouter” YouTube page (when I get time to edit after the trip):