Pedicab Man

Let me be blunt...working people do not have enough time to get optimal amount of exercise.

Here is my answer for what is enough exercise:

Let's start with some facts: 1. When we do long distance bicycle touring--over 1.200 miles-- we are usually in reasonably good shape at the beginning of the ride. 2. It takes about 1.200 miles or so for our bodies to get use to riding 60 plus miles a day so that this distance seems easy.  3. Sixty miles takes about 6 hours a day.

Once you are in shape to do a comfortable 60 miles per day, day in day out you will notice some other changes which have taken place.  1. You WILL be sleeping good.  2. All those little aches and pains  go away.  3. You know your endorphins have kicked by the big smile your carrying around.

I have a bad shoulder from body surfing, bad hip from bike accidents, bad ankles from God knows what, sciatic nerve pain from football, trouble sleeping and mild depression.  In other words... normal old guy stuff.   All this baggage gets dropped along the road  when we do long bicycle tours.  It's happened on every tour.

One plus one equals two.  AND 6 hours of exercise a day at 70-80% of max heart rate equals good health.

When I ride my pedicab downtown it has always been a chore to ride back home across the James Island Connector because it's so steep coming in this direction.  After our bike trip this ride became much easier.   I thought it was because I got stronger on the ride and maybe so but now it's become clear the real reason is time. Eighteen hundred miles on the road will teach you that there is no rush getting up the hills. Just get in comfortable gear and enjoy the trip.  All the other crap in your life will wait a few minutes longer.

Labels: notice the big bike lane?

Texass has a lot of rest stops which they make more affordable by NOT offing bathroom facilities.  However,  there is a realization that people have needs so ladders are provided so that folks can scale the fence and have at IT surrounded by mother nature..if you got to go bad enough you'll go.

Labels: no shit

Did you notice that Las Cruces is east of Deming and that after 1800 miles of west bound travel we are now headed east? Folks...20 plus mph winds will make you do funny things. After just one 60 mile day into this wind we weren't crazy enough to do another 65 miles to Lordsburg, not stupid enough to do another 75 miles to Safford and 80 miles to Globe with predicted 50 mph wind gusts would be insane.

So...we turned around and had a nice wind assisted ride back to Las Cruces where Ron went shopping at Wal Mart, I had a few martinis, Lucky did a few tequilas and Jan hung out with the guys.

Tomorrow we drop the horses off at the bike shop for boxing and shipment back home and hop the shuttle to the El Paso Airport for the trip home.

We got a barely daylight start to beat the winds. There is a nice climb out of the river valley up to the southern desert of New Mexico. This is when we met The bad ass wind which was blowing over 20 mph at times. A reasonably flat ride turned into by far our hardest ride of the trip.

Ron and I drafted each other most of the day. Jan and Lucky got a ride about 10 miles out of town from a farmer and beat us to the motel. Cal had a hard time. We're all beat and a little depressed since we have more of this stuff tomorrow.

We got to the motel in time to see the Auburn LSU game. I knew someone was going to be disappointed and am glad to say it was Lucky.

We had pizza in the room.

We got a late start and had a nice easy ride up to Las Cruces which is just up the Rio Grand River valley from El Paso. We cross the Rio Grand a few miles from our motel. The river at this point would be considered a creek in South Carolina. The once mighty river has been drained almost dry by El Paso.

We past a slew of pecan orchards, alfalfa fields on the ride which are kept green by the river.

In Las Cruces we checked into the Day Inn and 15 minutes later checked out when we discovered their Wifi Sid not work. We ended up at a Hampton Inn and ate at an Applebees.

We had major storms last night including temporary loss of power. We were lucky that the storm roll in after dark and not while we were on the road.

Today's ride was nice and flat till the last 9 miles when we climbed 1100 feet--they don't call it Mesa Street for nothing. El Paso is the first large town we've visited on this trip.
After riding in the traffic we are ready to hit the country again.