Day 20: Stats & Planning

Hanging out in Van Horn, TX
Date: 01/21/2013

The most interesting thing in town.

There is nothing to do in Van Horn. It’s Monday of the MLK holiday and what little there is to do is closed up tight. The cute café. The few shops. I took a 2 hour walk up and down the main drag and the (second) most interesting thing I saw was the El Capitan hotel – if I’m ever back here and not on a budget I’m totally staying there. I snagged a decent lunch at Chuy’s, which is home of the “John Madden Haul of Fame”(sic)… I have no idea what they’re hauling but the story here tells why John Madden is involved. So I spent the day planning, watching the inauguration, and other tv. Fun times.

View from the roof of the El Capitan.

I’ve got 630 miles to go. I’m planning to ride it in 8 days. This is the route I plan to take. I’m going to do a little bit of fun sightseeing along the way, so it’s not the most direct. But I’ll still get done a couple days before my flight out of Austin. After spending some time looking at the route I’m starting to look forward to west Texas a bit more.

Texas is just too damn big.

As I was planning the rest of the trip, I was thinking about the road traveled thus far. Here are some random and somewhat disorganized stats:

• 1104.63 miles traveled over 20 days
• 64% of the total miles completed
• 125 hours 41 minutes spent riding
• 44k feet climbed
• 3 days were spent off of the bike as rest days
• 7 consecutive days on the bike (max)
• 55.23 miles/day average
• 64.98 miles/day not including the days off
• 8.78 mph averaged across all days
• 50+ cyclists seen on the road (all but 5 were seen on the same day)
• 11 dogs have chased me on the bike (once by a pack of 6, but they actually looked friendly)
• 11 nights spent with warm shower hosts
• 7 nights at hotels (including tonight)
• 2 nights camping
• 1 night with family (hurray Ruth and Ben!)
• 0 bike related injuries
• 0 flat tires
• 0 pain killers

So far, so good. Looking forward to getting back on the bike tomorrow.