Day 1

This kind of blew up online, so for all the people I don't know, I apologize once again for my poor writing.

Leaving from home I had a little send off with my family, and started pedaling at about 9 o'clock in the morning, starting in the North side of Longview. 

I had ridden or driven through a lot of this country before, so while there was a bit of sightseeing, I mainly focused on putting in mileage. However, if you've never been to East Texas, I really do recommend it. The countryside in East Texas is gorgeous and full of lush natural scenery.


 For this trip I have a goal of averaging 100 km a day (63 miles), which would put me there in 2 weeks, but I'm not really afraid to push on further if I feel good, which is exactly what I did. I didn't anticipate how hard the first day would be though, I was pushing into a 13 mph headwind and the entire route was rather hilly. Even considering that, I felt like I was going slower than normal, and later I figured out why when my rear tire started bottoming out on bumps. After an inspection, I found that my tire had a staple punched through it and my tube had been slowly leaking all day, as soon as I remedied that I felt like I was flying! I was looking to ride to Atlanta or Queen City, Texas and bed down, but by the time I got to Atlanta I knew I wanted to go ahead and push on to Texarkana and the state line, so I ate about 1000 calories of melted gummy bears and got back on.


 I ended up biking about 90 miles in the first day in 6.5 hours and while it wasn't as hot as normal, the amount of sweat that you produce is insane, and you have to just and replenish electrolytes so much. These shirts were initially black, all of the white it's salt from dried sweat.

Once I got to Texarkana, I stopped at Chipotle to treat myself to dinner. I have a rule that I won't spend more than $10 a day for food while I'm on my tour, but if I do extra mileage I will give myself extra money, an extra dollar for every 16 km beyond 100 km. After Chipotle I rode to the Texarkana A&M campus and pitched my hammock for the evening. This morning I was woken up by campus security shooing me away at 6 am, so I started packing up and headed to state line road for breakfast and to write this. 




Thank you for all the support, it's amazing to me how many people are keeping track of me now, and I can't wait to meet some of you in Chicago!

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 4, 2017 at 12:03 AM

    Kanten, you are charting your journey beautifully! With your words and the pictures taken along the way, this will be special journey not just for you, but all of us following you. I'm so proud of you. Meme

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 6, 2017 at 1:29 PM

    Playing catch-up here but so far looking great man!!! Love what you're doing, envious would be an understatement. Is that your dad in the first picture? The Outbound Train singer?!? Those dudes are awesome!

    ReplyDelete

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