Monday October 24, 2011, 74 miles (119 km) – Total so far: 1,616 miles (2,600 km)
We rode out of Uvalde early to find another nice countryside. At first the road and shoulder were smooth but it slowly turned rough and bumpy. Then the hills appeared and the ride became a continuous up and down with a vibration from the bumpy shoulder. Traffic was light so we rode on the road whenever possible. We found out later that many of the Texas roads are made of chip-seal. Tar is spread out then pebble or larger sized rocks are thrown on top. These rocks stick to the tar (and from what we heard not even steamrolled over) and that’s the road. Over time the tar shrinks away leaving a very bumpy surface. The rocks are still embedded but not covered. It gets to be that even your teeth are rattling! We did pass several work crews reworking the roads with regular asphalt.
We stopped for lunch in Brackettville and had you guessed it – tacos! Fueled with that we pulled into Del Rio after 74 miles in 8 hours. It was a hot one though and both of us ran out of water right before Del Rio. Jocelyn carries 3 24 oz. bottles along with a 70 oz. hip pack. I carry 2 24 oz. bottles with a 100 oz. backpack.
On the way to the Best Western we came across Lakeside Sports Bike Shop. We went in and I immediately saw my Schwalbe Marathon Plus Touring tires! I have been thinking about new ones as the middle tread was wearing away after over 4000 plus miles. We also had about 500 more miles of chip-seal remaining and who knows what the other western states have. I like these tires so much (no flats) that I decided to replace Jocelyn’s two day old tires with these and use hers as spares. It was really a no-brainer. So we found the Best Western a half a block down, stripped the bikes and returned them to Lakeside Sports. We hope to have them back by 11:00 this Tuesday morning. When we returned to the motel we had a nice swim, Mexican dinner and bedtime. I am writing this from a laundry mat and thinking about our westward trip on Hwy 90 to El Paso.
