Day 11 11/6/2021
Odometer- 25,139 – 25220 —– 81 Miles Today ( 2520 Miles Total)
Monterrey Mexico
Note – Since i figured out how to BCC everyone in the emails please feel free to write back some ideas you have, what you’re thinking, or have any recommendations for places to check out! I’ll be the only one to get them! Thank you!
WHAT A DAY!
First day I woke up in Mexico and alot went down. Got up at sunrise today and i decided i’ll go check out some stuff i saved on my maps. Hopped on the bike and rode east a bit to some wild limestone rock formations and mountains. The view was spectacular. After doing a little bit of off-roading to a scenic spot that I couldn’t make it to, I got a flat! Bummer! I didn’t have half my tools with me but I had no other choice. I rode near the entrance of the park and propped some huge bricks and rocks in my top box to lift the front wheel off the ground. Now I also was going to try to make it to a crossfit class at 11am and it was 9:15 so hell yeah I was in a mad rush to change it! Soap and water is key to getting the tire off the rim or else it’s a pain in the ass. Of course I didn’t have that with me so I ended up using my chain lube instead and it worked like a charm. I also didn’t have all of my “spoons” (the tools to get the tire off the rim). I only had two new ones i haven’t tried to use yet and like butter the tire slipped right off, threw the new tube in. A nice man and woman came over on a road bike and asked if I needed a ride anywhere or help but I made it without their help! People are so helpful here, oh and he also spoke great english! New record time…25 minutes from wheel off to back on, filled her up with air and I was good to go. I couldn’t believe it. Definitely boosted my confidence for the rest of the trip.
My last trip in Europe and Africa was 14K miles and I got a flat at about the 4-5000 mile mark, took me and my friends like 6 hours to change it. I don’t want to even talk about that….it was embarrassing.
2500 Miles into the trip and my first flat is here. Hopefully it’s the last one but I doubt it! I was even riding in my only pair of jeans and didn’t even get a speck of dirt on them! Great Success in the Borat voice! Made it to the crossfit gym, crushed a workout with the people.
Finding food here in the city has been very rough for me, really two days into the trip in Mexico and i didnt have a full real meal yet. (My spanish is non existent as i just started learning and i keep speaking to everyone in Italian since i keep getting the two mixed up!) I’ve just been living off of protein shakes I bought in Austin. Next I was on a mission to find another tube. Three bike shops later and I got one.
Now I am heading over to Cerro de la Silla on the eastern side of Monterrey for a hike my friend did about a month ago. He got an incredible shot of the city and some mountains in the morning. He said it took him about 3 hours to get up and 3 to get down. I started the hike with my headlamp, battery pack, down jacket, cameras and a liter of water. Well right off the bat I realized I fucked up bigtime. I’m usually good with no water on big hikes from all the running I used to do but this hike was all vertical and no flat spots. I was pretty bummed thinking I wont be able to make the top and after the crossfit class my legs were smoked.
About 1/2 way up the mountain there was a viewpoint and some women selling drinks and snacks. BOOM! Got two liters of mexican gatorade and a bag of oreos. buried one liter of the gatorade in my stomach along with the oreos and kept on hiking. Some fit young people at the midway point were telling me how hard it was but I was way ahead of schedule compared to their times so I had faith I’ll make it! Ended up doing the climb in 1:35, 3.2 miles wirth 3700′ of incline. I can’t wait for you guys to see these pictures I took when you’re done reading this. Also if anyone can identify these creatures that were all over the mountain please LMK what they were. They were super friendly!
I was going to stay up top for the sunset to get some shots of the city at night but the last big climb was in Palm Springs (9600′ and 13 miles I think) my right knee went to shit on the descent. I started the climb back down and sure as hell within about 300′ of walking down hill the sharp knee pain started right up. I got pretty worried about the knee since it was worse than last time. I started walking backwards for as much as i could which didn’t hurt at all. Suddenly night time came and walking backwards with a headlamp was pretty shitty. All i thought about was one step at a time and i’ll be down in a few hours hopefully. I stopped at the midway point to take some pictures of the city for about 30 minutes. As soon as I got up I knew I fucked up. legs were super cramped up and it hurt like hell. There were about 10 steps I took on the descent where the pain was so bad that if the next step hurt that bad that was it for me but luckily the next step wasn’t as bad.
So after I got home I went out for some dinner with friends i made at crossfit, got home and passed out!
Just a little note for you all from all my travels and climbing that I’ve done. I have passed on this info to a lot of people that I’ve met over the last many years so I figured I would throw it in here too.
A really nice app to download for hiking or anything travel related is Maps.me . It has every single hiking, walking, driving dirt path in the world on it and works off of GPS with airplane mode on so you don’t need service for it to work which is a game changer. I gave it to a few people over the past few years and they told me it definitely saved their ass from possibly getting into a fatal situation outdoors on a hike they got lost on. They were very thankful. It also saved my ass more than a few times.
Another little life saving trick for hiking is to wear as much wool as you can. Smartwool and icebreaker make great products. Cotton is the death material to wear on an excursion where you get lost and might have to spend a night outdoors especially if you get wet. Wool dries much much faster than cotton and you don’t get as cold.It also doesn’t smell. The shirt, socks or underwear have to be more than about 65% of wool for it to work that way it’s supposed to. Don’t be buying clothes that have 40% wool with 60% elastic poly in it.
Yesterday on the climb my shirt was soaked completely on the way up and I took it off and hung it off my backpack. I brought a long sleeve wool shirt incase i got stuck up there for the night and I needed it on the way down. it was nearly dry when i got down and you guys who know me really well know how much i sweat. This morning when i left monterrey i put the same shirt on that was soaked in sweat and it didn’t smell one bit. That’s pretty much my life right now. Wearing all wool and not having to wash it for days at a time. When I find a river I jump in it wearing all my clothes and get back on the bike. it keeps me cool for a bit until it dries and doubles as washing it! I know half of you think it’s disgusting but it is what it is for this type of trip! Anyway if you go for a hike, always wear wool. It might save your life and you’ll be very thankful if you get into a situation you didn’t expect.
A big shoutout to Lilly for helping me translate a bunch of spanish my first two days here!