Day 26 - Back on Schedule

Last night the crew got to go out to eat at Tre's in San Antonio and it was amazing. We also go to take a pic in front of The Alamo. We were gangster style though, Big E left the car running at the curb and we jumped out and took it! I'm pretty sure the guy that took the pic thought we were crazy. We have gotten to see a lot of cool stuff along the way, this is truly a once in a lifetime experience.

(From Cory) On that note let me take a moment to let all of you reading this know how hard our days have been. This is the hardest most painful thing either one of us have ever done. This past week has been the hardest but these moments create life long memories. Not a lot of people get to spend 4-6 hrs a day riding their bike with their best friend seeing the country at 12-20 mph. Jimmy has worked harder than I could ever have imagined, I'm so proud of him. Unless you have a SCI or have a family member with one you will never know how hard the simplest things can be. Also, even though he looks fully recovered in some pictures he still has a long way to go and he is working at it everyday. So please don't assume because we always try to smile for the camera that we are just out here having fun. We are working our asses off and trying to raise money for much needed research.

Today we are once again just going to get on the bikes and ride. We started outside San Antonio on the I-10 Freeway heading toward Houston. The wind isn't totally in our face today and Travis is here again to help us push the wind for Jimmy. The roads are actually good today so we put our heads down and went at it. It was pretty hot again on the I-10. It was 42 miles to where the bus was stopped for lunch, we made it there in 2 hrs and 40 min. Travis is helping a lot today. After lunch we are going to try the 90 again because we heard from a local that it has been repaved and the trees may offer up some shade from the sun and wind. We were going to try and make up the time we lost this past week to get back on schedule again. The 90 was surprisingly smooth well, at least the first 20 miles were. Then it just went to crap again. There were 2-3 inch gaps about every 20 feet. So once again we hit the I-10. After 5.5 hrs we rode 83 miles and were back on schedule. Thank you all for following us and supporting our cause.

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 25The Alamo

Today the ride began about 26 miles outside San Antonio. Travis joined us today from California and he will be here through Friday. We still had a cross wind but we did have decent roads for most of the day. It was nice to experience downtown San Antonio on a bike. We got to see the Riverwalk and the Alamo. The lunch stop for today was back at the bus. We had our usual fruit and Ryno Power "Carb-Fuel" shakes for lunch. Thanks Ryno for supporting us. The second part of our day was supposed to be spent on I-10 but I guess the truckers in San Antonia don't like cyclist. They gave us a lot of uncalled for honks. So after our wonderful Chase Chicks had taken all they could we made a jump back down to Hwy 90. It wasn't as rough as it had been the past few days but it wasn't smooth. We ended up being able to ride 62 miles in just under 5 hrs. This has been a hard week on our bodies and minds. The wind in your face all day everyday slowly wears on the spirit.

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 24 Turbo

Today we are supposed to have someone join us for the ride somewhere close to San Antonio. Little did we know Jason "Turbo" Doyle would do a 76 mile solo trip out to where were staying in Uvalde, TX to turn around and ride back with us. Little did he know that we hadn't made it quite all of the way to the bus the night before. So we packed up and drove another 16 miles west on the 90 to start our day. Rumor is the roads get better today. We weren't shooting for a specific ending point today because we hadn't been able to make up ground at all this week. So our board just said "here to there, TX". It didn't take long to tell that we weren't at altitude anymore either because someone turned up the heat. We actually ended up making up 20 miles of our lost mileage today with the smoother roads and less wind. Notice I said less wind, not no wind but we will take it! We decided to stop about 20 miles out of San Antonio but not Turbo. He decided to finish it all the way in. He finished his day with around 160 miles in the saddle and that's why we called him Turbo. Thanks for the help.

JB & Cory
East Bound & Down

Day 23 Gravel

Del Rio to 20 miles before Uvalde

Today started out with overcast and a possibly of rain which made the temperature about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday. The winds were favorable for a majority of the day as well. The night before we were fortunate enough to meet a few fine people at the Holiday Trav-L-Park and when we rode by today they were all gathered on the street cheering us on! A big thanks to all of them and especially to Cindy for organizing it! On a side not everyone loved our Honda mini van and one of the couples even took a test drive with Big E. We had been in the desert for the past few days and it was a great change to be in civilization again. The roads today were the worst by far, we even passed by the Department of Transportation and wanted to stop in and file a formal complaint. It looks like they spread tar on a smooth road and then threw gravel at it sporadically, we have also come to the conclusion there are no steam rollers used in Texas on their roads. We are excited about a few riders joining us in the next few days and also the prospect of smoother roads.

JB & Cory

Eastbound & Down

Day 22 Same, Same!

Middle of nowhere to Del Rio

Same rough roads, same wind, same hills and same heat.

Highlight of the day was passing the Pecos River and seeing the awesome rock walls around it. We rode into the wind all day again today. The good thing is we are supposed to be done with the hills but probably not the wind. We are both hoping the roads get a lot smoother as well. I guess we will just need to wait and see what happens tomorrow.

JB & Cory

Eastbound & Down

Day 21 Black Jack

27 miles past Marathon to the middle of nowhere.

The day started out extremely hot, 87 degrees at 10:00am. Jimmy had major muscle spasms and stomach cramps. Some times the heat is unbearable for Jimmy’s injury so he had to ride with his shirt open the entire day.

We stopped in Sanderson, TX for lunch where we had to change a tire because of road debris. Immediately after lunch Jimmy’s left leg spasmimed due to the heat which forced us to slow down 4 miles per hour.

Once again the road was rough, which seems to be standard for Texas. The 2600 feet of descending we did was off set by the head wind that we encountered the entire day.

We are holed in Comstock, TX with no internet or phone service but we were able to get our TV to work after being out of commission for the last 4 days.

Highlights of the day:

Very courteous drivers today, an airstrip in the middle of nowhere and we met a fellow cyclist, Adam, who was riding from Ashville, North Carolina to Phoenix with his final destination being Seattle, WA.

JB & Cory

Eastbound & Down

Day 20 - Midway

Day 20 was supposed to be our halfway point on the ride but it ended up being a rest day because of how hard the week has been. After we rested most of the day and did our laundry we took an easy 27 mile ride. We actually got to meet a lot of cool people at the camp fire here. We will get back at it tomorrow and are hoping for better wind conditions tomorrow.

JB & Cory
Eastbound & Down