Okay, it is time to FINISH riding the Southern Tier Bicycle Route. This coast-to-coast route from the Adventure Cycling Association winds its way from San Diego to St. Augustine, Florida. I would love to ride the entire 3300 miles at one time, but my higher priority is staying happily married. So I decided to split it up into two sections.
I biked 1521 miles from Austin, Texas, to Jacksonville, Florida, in March 2024. In February 2025, I was originally planning on riding the other 1800 miles from San Diego to Austin. (I flip-flopped the order because one or two of our sons might have been transferred from Japan and England to somewhere in that section after March 2024…and indeed, David now lives in San Antonio, so I’m going to take a detour to see him!)
But my new barbershop quartet had a show in early April 2025, so I ran out of time to do the entire western half last spring. (My higher priority is staying happily singing with the Northwoods Quartet.) So in March 2025 I flew home from El Paso.
So this trip is to finally FINISH the Southern Tier, by riding 800 miles from El Paso to Austin. This section should be far less hilly than the western 1000 miles, at least as far as long mountain passes.
My biggest challenges in western Texas will be winds and isolation. There are long stretches with nothing but tumbleweeds and lonely country roads. So I will need to bring extra food and water on my bike, and may need to do some “wild camping” in some spots, where I just set up my tent on any available piece of flat ground.
One other challenge will be darkness. The temperatures look very pleasant this time of year down there, but by the time I start biking October 14, it’ll be more than three weeks after the equinox. So it will already be pitch black over half of the hours every day, and will only get worse as I head toward November.
My plan to handle that is to start early each morning and make the best use of daylight. Hopefully the forecasts of lows in the 50s will hold…in the higher elevations of the western 1000 miles last spring, it was often freezing overnight, so I usually had to wait a bit to start each day to avoid frigid riding conditions.
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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):
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066334039590
“Old Scouter” YouTube page (when I get time to edit after the trip):