Deep in the heart of Texas

Posted by Cait on Apr 26, 2009 in Southern Tier 2009 | 6 comments

Yes, we’re still in Texas, and all’s quiet on the Southern Tier. The thrill of crossing state borders has gradually faded into a vague memory as we continue to pedal our way across the vast, unsettled frontier known as the Lone Star State. “Everything” is supposedly bigger here, including the trucks, the RV’s, the steep climbs, and the long expanses of desolate nothingness between tiny, one stop-sign towns. Texas is so good at what it does that sometimes I get the feeling that I’m not actually IN Texas, but have instead wandered into a vast, Lone Star-themed chain restaurant, where “The Bluest Eyes in Texas” plays on a continuous loop and everyone is decked out in spurs and a ten-gallon hat eating chicken-fried steak. The people here could not be friendlier, but they certainly haven’t let a single stereotype go unfulfilled.

Leading bike tours for the last four years has given me the unique opportunity to witness the explosion of fixed-gear/messenger culture into small-town communities all over the US. Cruising through the comparative boomtown of Alpine (population: 6K), I witnessed a passing flash of bright Velocity deep-Vs and immediately sought to build a connection to the young, urban-cycling enthusiasts presumably at the helm of these now universally-popular vehicles. Really, I just wanted someone to laugh at my jokes and think that my tattoos are cool–after a month of traveling with the Golden Age set, I couldn’t help but think that my particular brand of scrappy, youthful exuberance would test better with the small-town teen demographic. Needless to say, the bike punx of Alpine blew right past me, weaving expertly through their single busy intersection with the questionable aid of narrowly-chopped handlebars, like I was standing still. I guess once you’ve donned multiple gearing and a Camelbak, you might as well be riding a recumbent as far as teens these days are concerned. Damn kids these days… being 30 is weird sometimes.

This area of the country has suffered from record drought for the last few years, so we continued to traverse dried-up river beds and brown, desiccated scrublands all the way into the famous rolling terrain of Texas Hill Country. Dusty, arid Tattooine gave way to the lush, deciduous forests of Endor as my messy cloud of hair cheerfully expanded in gratitude for all the moisture in the air. Seriously, I look like a labradoodle–once again you can measure the humidity index by the rapidly-increasing circumference of my head. It’s no wonder those mean Alpine bike punx wouldn’t give me the time of day. Damn punx!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually rode this exact route last year with my friend Claire as far as Austin, then flew to Virginia to lead a cross-country bike tour back to Oregon. My familiarity with the terrain has been both a blessing and a curse–it’s nice to have some preparation for what lies ahead, but never easy to head into a difficult stretch without stressing over the doom and hardship of the previous year’s suffering. As our group rolled out into the 95-degree heat outside of Bracketville, my stomach tensed at memories of last year’s Uvalde County Horror, when I rode for forty hot, humid miles with acute food poisoning on my own private trail of tears. “Nature” didn’t so much “call”, as it somersaulted in through the windows wearing those SWAT team uniforms for what I can safely say was in THE TOP TEN WORST DAYS OF “GOOGLEMAPS (I’m continuing to campaign for this nickname) GIDDINGS’” LIFE. This year I was able to bury my dead with regards to that horrifying trauma–the riding was difficult, but uneventful. Actually, a friendly Border Patrol agent cheerfully conducted Operation: Hydrate Cyclists throughout the day, greatly aiding our cause and even regaling us with stories of the latest narcotics news. The third time he pulled us over with his much-beloved cooler of ice water, he told us that the day’s haul–narcotics perpetrators being processed at the station–had finally turned themselves in because of heat exhaustion. “You guys are crazy to be out here,” seemed to be the laughing implication, and I think that he was probably right. The Border Patrol gig looks to be pretty uneventful most of the time, so between dragging tires along dirt roads in an effort to uncover human tracks (a constant process that brings to mind that scene in Spaceballs with the giant, literal comb being pulled across the desert), I guess there’s not much to do except tool around and razz cyclists. Fresh ice water on a humid, 95-degree day is like heaven’s sweet elixir, though–thank you various Border agents of Uvalde County!

Hill Country provided other challenges for our spirited crew of riders, as mechanical breakdowns and physical calamities rapidly turned us into a squadron of 13 Macguyvers. I can probably create an entire new bicycle solely out of two rolls of electrical tape and a handful of zip-ties at this point, provided the intended rider doesn’t care about specifics like lug design. Thus far, my favorite roadside fix has to be when we rigged up a crude superhero mask out of surgical tape to protect the grit-infected eyes of our recumbent rider–an effect that was intended to gently suggest “Zorro”, but instead screamed “crazy person on a crazy reclining bicycle”. A mere clothes-pinned towel-cape away from true LARPing, for a week his public image hovered somewhere between “The (semi) Invisible Man” and “I’m going to rob your store of Shot Bloks.” On the off chance that a recumbent rider can be said to possess an ego, I politely continued to call him “Zorro” anyway.

In a cheerful mood at an eerie, desolate RV park alongside the interstate in Comfort, I asked one of the riders, “Do you ever feel like one of the happy-go-lucky teens at the beginning of a horror movie?” Naturally, he had no idea what I was talking about (people rarely do), but it certainly SEEMED like the perfect scene for a headlamp-lit slasher flick, complete with razor-sharp chain-ring murder weapon and blood wicking off of microfiber spandex. Uneasy in my tent, I eventually fell asleep to the steady hum of highway traffic. I awoke to the true horror of Comfort’s RV Park USA: BROKEN SPOKES. On two separate bikes! Completely unexplained, and completely annoying. After performing some actual mechanic work with real tools (as opposed to the chewing gum and krazy glue I use to jerry-rig things roadside), the two victims were back on the road for a long day of headwinds and nigh-endless flat tires. After another long, difficult day of mechanical mayhem, we pulled into the campsite just at dusk, anxious for a rest day after a week and a half of tough riding. We’ve been staying in some pretty sleazy places with the kind of sleazy campground proprietors that instantly bring to mind the haunting-spree perpetrators of a Scooby-Doo episode. After contending with more than my share of unsolicited back rubs from these suspicious characters, I’m really starting to miss the cheery, asexual professionalism of a good KOA. Hopefully the campsites will improve as we head East towards civilization.

Today is our rest day in Austin, and I couldn’t be happier to be here. I replaced my tires, my chain, and my cassette at the bike shop; and I’m about to experiment with one of the new Dark Magic botanical Kombuchas at Whole Foods (the happy place I go to in my mind when confronted with trauma). On my ride in, I had a chance to witness the annual Festival of Wiener Dog Races in Buda for the SECOND year in a row, which lends a comforting feeling of purpose to my life, like I’m exactly where I should be right now among tube-like canine friends. The numerous throngs of people swarming the streets of Austin are a little overwhelming, so I think by tomorrow I’ll be ready to return to small-town Southern Americana. We’re halfway to our goal now–it’s all downhill from here!