Day 2 on the road, and in the wind.
The first day went really well until about dark.
Straight roads, no long stretches without a gas station, no cops, nice temps, and partly cloudy.
I was climbing the mountain headed to Saltillo when I found out that truck drivers in Mexico are one crazy bunch of fellas.
I wish I had more pics, but I was pretty preoccupied with trying not to get crushed between two semis.
The temperature was dropping and all I had on was a long sleeve shirt and a wind breaker.
Luckily the rain was more a sprinkle than full blown rain, and it didn't last long.
These shots are from just before I began to climb the hill.
I got to the toll road and the craziness began, tailgating, speeding, it was an exciting hour or so.
At the end of the toll road, the last of the light was gone, I paid my cuenta in a puddle of oil I was lucky enough not to fall over into and began to proceed in an orderly fashion when a hole, 18 inches deep, 3 meters wide, and 4 feet across opened up in my lane.
I missed that bike swallowing hole by about 6 inches.
This was when I decided to stop until daylight.
There was a Pemex just past the toll booth, so I pulled in, put the bike on the centerstand and took a few minutes to reevaluate my trip through the mountains.
Come to find out 52 degrees farenheit was not the best waiting for daylight temperature, so after two hours I put on addtional layers and headed into the dark.
I made it about an hour and that was enough for me.
Luckily I stopped at a BP and the nice young guy that made his living by washing windows on the trucks told me to pull around back and take a nap, he would watch my stuff.
That was about midnight, about 4am I gave up on trying to sleep and went into the convienence store and got some hot chocolate.
Daybreak was just after 6 and I was back on the road only to find this:
You can see my headgear and blue windbreaker.
I have ridden in subfreezing temps with these, but that didn't make this day feel any warmer.
I hung out for a time and as the fog began to burn off I took to the road once again.
I stopped at a truck stop just to stretch my legs, but ended up getting lunch, too.
I wish my appetite had been better, but I still had no certainty about my destination and left most of this uneaten.
They called it 'guisado' and was soup with bistec(beef) y papas(potatoes).
It was really very good, though the 90 pesos (4.5usd) seemed a little over priced, though it was probably not for being on the hiway.
The fog had mostly burned off, and I had come back down the mountain so the air was warming up, so no excuse to not get back onto the road and back to the adventure.
This was one place the federales had a checkpoint, but it was only for the folks going north and they didn't look at me twice.
I will leave you with this final pic for this post.
For those of you that are spanishly challenged it says that the road ahead is very curvy and that we should diminsh our speed.
Have a perfectly peaceful day.
Keep working, stop paying.
No war, but the class war!!
That's not a pothole, it's a bike trap.
I was lucky not to fall into that one, later on the road became more pothole than road.
I hope to get to that in the next post.
How much further you got to go bro? or is it a stop when you feel welcome type trip. Safe rides broskie.
A good little way, and the farther along the worse the roads.
The roads well some of them at least here are not exactly perfect, I feel your pain, though you are riding a LOT further than me, let me know when you find "home".
I'm afraid that 'home' will have to wait until my check turns on in '28, until then I'll have to work for wages unlikely to allow me to afford a place of my own.
But, the food is good, the internet is reasonably priced, and my friends say i can stay with them indefinitly, so life is good.
Except for the cold, a storm blew in and the temp dropped to 12C, brrr,...don't let them lie to you, there is cold in Mexico and at elevation it is worse.
All sounds good apart from the cold bit, and you have company so that is also a bonus. Adam Kokesh sent me 33 copies of his book bro, one signed, along with some freedom stickers and badges, top man him.
That is a good deal, I haven't met him, and have only my own preconceived prejudices for him to over come.
He must be doing ok, if he can hand out books like that, time will tell us the truth.
Thanks for sharing your travels!
In the states, we still have many bicycle swallowing holes.
We call them drainage grates. And they have bars aligned so that they will support car tires, but just the right size, long and narrow, for eating bicycle tires.
I can just imagine an old crone in mexico going on about avoiding bike eating holes. (burning incense and other "smells" heavy in the air ) And how there are a few less bikers in the world now... sooo, beware
Yeah, I've pushed pedals, too.
In Acapulco on the Farallon are some of those grates, luckily Aca is too hilly to ride a bicycle in, down would be ok, but up would take all day.
As always, it's nice to hear from you in your travels and that you are okay...here's hoping that wherever it is you journey to, it is rewarding in the most important ways. Regards @angryman
Went to move our post over here and saw you had quite the adventure going. Thanks for the handy link. They are not very creative, so a great deal of their scheming comes from sources such as that one.
On to your current post - very well done...everyone likes adventures. Stay safe over there.
Good post and vital for a trader like me. Thanks.