March 8, 2018
Day 19
El Paso, Tx to Clint, Tx
Miles ridden 41.8 Elevation climbed 721 feet
Today started like every other day, breakfast, bikes ready and off me go. That was the the only routine part of our day. What a day, if it could go wrong it seems it did. The route through El Paso is through the busy city, there are designated lanes for bikes and cars to share, not all drivers were pleased to have 6 newbies riding through their city. Eventually we took to the sidewalk as the streets did not feel at all safe for us. At one point Maggie opted to ride with George to avoid injuring her healing knee.She would later join us on the East side of the city. If at all possible avoid downtown El Paso. We would say goodbye to Vicki and Bill here as they caught a train for New Orleans.
Early in our ride flats were the norm, Jeff had one and then not 1/2 hr later Tim had both tires flatten. More thorns for Tim and glass for Jeff. A friendly Texan having coffee at Starbucks came out to help with repairs and had a bike tool kit in his car to rival Tims. They had lots to talk about. Out of downtown and cruising along Donna hit a particularly hard bump and low and behold the entire rear rack crashed to the ground, the bracket that holds it all broke in half. It seemed like a disaster but Tim had a temporary solution, zip ties. So now my bike is zip tied together until we can find a bike or hardware to get a new bracket. The guys think I should be good until Austin,Tx. We'll see.
Away from El Paso and safely put back together we had a nice ride along route 76 to Clint, Tx. Here in Clint we saw acres and acres of Pecan orchards. One last hill to climb to the motel and we met up with George at the Best Western. It was all in a days ride, just a really frustrating day.
Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 755 miles (1,215 km)
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