Saturday October 29, 2011

We left Van Horn early hoping to make it to El Paso. We started on the ACA route of riding I-10 for 13 miles before changing over to frontage roads. I-10 has a large, smooth and clean shoulder so we decided to stay. The view was all mountainous and was quite spectacular. There were two other touring bikes headed east. Traffic was light. We stopped for lunch in Fort Hancock then continued with the rolling interstate. I had problems with shifting my chainwheel in 3rd (the largest gear). There is a plastic wheel that attaches to the outside gear and seems to keep the chain from going over when shifting. This broke early on so every time I wanted to pick up speed I stopped and manually shifted the chain. This worked out well and we made good time. We stopped in Clint, Texas right at sunset and found a nice motel. I zip tied the plastic wheel in place and it seems to work. I talked with a fellow crazyguy and found out that there is an adjustment to keep the chain from going over the large gear. I learn something every day! Tomorrow we plan to be out of Texas!