One Month In

Sometimes your body tells you when you need a break. Knees start to hurt or there's just an overwhelming lack of general energy. This time, however, we took a rest day I didn't realize we needed. We'd been building our miles up steadily and feeling strong but riding that much takes a physical toll, especially when we're still pretty new to the whole process.

Fighting Fires and Finding the "Garden of Eden"

One of the many great things about bikes is they allow your body to become slowly acclimatized to your surroundings. You can only travel so quickly and so far at once meaning, as the air gets warmer or there's less oxygen while going up mountains, the change is gradual and essentially pleasant. Unless of course you bypass the biking for a bit and take a bus.

Pyramids, Birthday Tequila, and Mexican Wrestling

My how days fly by the further you go south! After our kind breakfast in San Juan with the mountain biking friend, the three of us decided to try out a new part of our adventure with the bus station. You might be like us and think "busses? How hard can that be? People use buses everyday!" However, what we needed to focus more on was taking a bus with bikes. We were able to buy three tickets, but the storage underneath was far too small so we ended up waiting another 4 hours for a larger one to Pachuca. Since it was already late, we quickly settled for a little restaurant called "buen comida" since it had to be good food! Lucky for us, they didn't lie and we were so hungry we ordered an extra round of quesadillas.

Road Bumps

We had the longest day yet on bikes yet from the town of Teotihuatan to Puebla, covering approximately 78 miles at about 8300 ft of elevation. Not a bad day considering the bikes alone weigh about 30 lbs with an additional 50lbs of gear strapped to them. After spending two weeks on pavement, covering distance I realized bikes are a fantastic form of transportation; it turns food objects such as snickers bars, tacos, and rice into energy which allows for the begrudging traveler to cover immense distance (if they only have the determination to do so). But just like a car, guzzling in fuel with an energy output, sometimes you fill up with a bad tank of gas, and the car doesn't run quite right. For us, we think it was a bowl of soup, with juice, and a enchilada combo we all got for dinner one night in Teotihaucan. Luckily, we had a planned two days rest in Puebla, where we envisioned ourselves climbing volcanoes near the city, meeting locals, and exploring the city. Instead the three of us have been relatively holed up in a room much to small for three men, three bikes, and gear strewn everywhere. To make matters worse our "economical hotel" comes complete without a toilet seat, and a sink which drains onto the floor to flow into the shower drain.

Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Waking up on our rest day in San Luis, we spent the morning apart from one another. The few hours of separation caused some serious anxiety since we hadn't been more than about 10 feet from each other for an entire week, but it was probably helpful to smell something besides the stench of Kai and Jon's Luther riding jersey. I spent my morning blogging, finding the best flavor of ice cream (vanilla with chocolate and caramel swirls mixed with oreo if you're wondering), and trying a guava fruit from a very friendly gentleman. Not wanting to  be too ambitious, we made sure to meet back up that afternoon.

Finally on the Road

After our Independence day celebrations, we had a bit of a late start to the morning. Getting back on the Trolls, we made our way to the road and immediately went through a 2 km tunnel to pass through the mountain. The other side had a stunning view of the valley, complete with low hanging clouds. The next 25 km was all downhill, but the road was made of a dense cobblestone that made us wonder if our wheels would last. Whenever possible, we opted for the angled drainage on the sides because it was smooth. I must say, even though our first few days were very physically demanding and our wheels probably should look more like squares, our Trolls have miraculously withstood every test thus far with flying colors.

The First Few Days

Training

Well... I think it´s safe to say we've found adventure!

Our journey south in the car was about as ridiculous as you might expect. About 3 too many bags of chips, infinite brownies, and loud singing of the Spanish alphabet as a final attempt at learning the language. Talking with our Spanish guide, Laura, we quickly learned we are in fact not fluent, and spent more time emphasizing key phrases and ways to avoid speaking such as pointing and asking "What's this?"