Despite my complaints about the bike, about midnight last night I decided to get the hell out of Dodge, and started pedaling West on the frontage road south of I-10. It unceremoniously ended about 3 miles out and, cursing, I retreated back to the Deming truck stop and had a small breakfast. Refreshed, I tried again, this time on the North side frontage road. At the Savoy truck stop the frontage road ended, and I rode the shoulder all the way into Lordsville, about 60 miles (plus the 6 miles or so for the false start made 66 miles in about 13 hours), arriving at the Lordsburg McD's at about 2:30 PM. What made the difference? I fastened the laptop bag securely to the luggage rack with my spare tube, and folded my serapes and used them to cushion the seat. Also raised the seat adequately, something I should have done a long time ago. Presto, minimized discomfort.
Sitting here with my coffee, head down on the table trying to sleep, a lady came by and plopped a bag with about 2 pounds of tamales on the table. Man, are they good. And now I found an outlet so I can update my blog.
So I guess I decided to use the bike for all my transportation within the U.S. If I can average 25 miles a day, that's 750 a month. If 50 per day, that's a respectable 1500 miles per month. Let's see how it works out.
last updated 2013-01-10 20:23:58. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com