At 12:30 pm I left for my ride which I was not physically ready to undertake but the clock was ticking. I took the frontage road which turned out to be on the south side of the Hwy. instead of the north as it was on the map. David planned to flow me. Four miles out and the frontage abruptly ended with no turn around and a short clim over gravel to the Hwy. I stopped to call David to alert him not to take that frontage road. Then another six miles up there was a tiny pop from the bike and a squeak. I stopped as David Hamlow had encouraged me to do when something changes on the bike. The back tire was rubbing, not good. I again called David to have him meet me at the Rest Stop a block or so back. I looked at the bike and worked on it for a bit and that was not helping so I walked the bike to the Rest Stop where there was shade and as it turned out a restroom for washing hands. Again we both worked on the bike but could not make progress. Now I was bummed. All in all I was lucky and I recognized that but my ride which I was reluctant to begin had been nipped in the bud.
We drove to Ft. Davis for the night with the knowledge that a bike shop was available in Alpine. The terrain was a varied prairie grass land with scrub oak and ever changing short mountains. Ft. David is the highest community in Texas, a little over 5,000 ft.
Thursday morning I knew it was a good day not to ride as my body was not responding well to much of anything. The bike was fixed with a new spoke and we were ready for the new day on Friday.
While we were waiting we bought groceries and visited the museum of the Big Bend at the Sul Ross state university. It is a small space but the ceiling curved but used small pieces of wood placed nearly in triangles to support the roof. This technique was invented in Germany in the 1920's, great way to have a curved roof if you do not have large beams of lumber.
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