Tales from the Road: MACH.19 - Saguaro Country, Day 12: West Texas Blast

Saguaro Country, Day 12
West Texas Blast
Thursday May 9, 2019

Van Horn, TX is almost exactly the halfway point between San Diego, CA and Jacksonville, FL, a fact well known to Iron Butt riders who may be doing coast-to-coast timed runs. Amenities are pretty scarce out there in West Texas. This I know because on a coast-to-coast timed run with my buddy Ray Smith (who unfortunately died less than a year ago), we counted on a gas station we'd marked on the westbound leg, but during our eastbound dash, the service station had dug all its fuel tanks out of the ground in the intervening day or two and had no fuel. West of Ozona, TX, we sheltered in place while AAA brought enough fuel for a 30-mile dash to the next exit with services. A word to the wise: Look sharp for fuel out there in West Texas!

On our two-day ride to Bisbee, AZ from Kerrville, TX, Van Horn was a little short for Day 1, and El Paso, 120 miles farther west, was a little long. Yesterday evening, after some internal debate, I settled on Van Horn and made reservations there.

Before rolling out this morning, I call up Auto Fuel services "near my route" on the GPS and see fuel in Ozona at just under 150 miles, which while towing the trailer and running 75 mph is a reasonable range. The next services are over 200 miles, which would put me out of gas somewhere in the middle of that stretch. That's why you check services when you're in West Texas with a limited range! Don't assume the next services are 10 or 20 miles away! So I create a waypoint in my route for services in Ozona.

Heading out at 9:00 AM on I-10 West, we soon encounter the Texas 80 mph speed limit. I try this for a while but soon set cruise on 75 mph. Why? Well, it mostly has to do with several issues related to the Escapade trailer.

First, the trailer decreases fuel mileage, and this effect is exponential with increase in speed. Without auxiliary fuel tanks. I don't know if running 80 will actually get you to a destination faster than 70 because it will require more fuel stops. Not that anyone's counting today. But just sayin...

Second, the tires. Those little trailer tires have a high rotational rate at road speed. That puts stress on bearings, but with properly packed bearings, that's really not a factor. (I just had my bearing repacked by the factory at the start of the trip.) Of more concern is the tires. These are light duty tires, and they generate heat when traveling. The faster they rotate, the more heat they generate. I've tested and proved no issues with trailer tires running 75 mph on hot asphalt, but never at 80 mph. So I content myself to run under the speed limit. 75 miles in an hour is still a respectable distance.

At our fuel stop in Ozona, I activate the Fobo Bike app on my phone. This app is Bluetooth-connected to little sensors on my trailer tires. I find the pressure is 21 psi (resting pressure is 20 psi) and tire temperature is about 80F. This is perfect and should cause no tire issues.

Another reason for running 75 mph is the wind. A vicious quartering wind from the north cuts across the bike as a "norther," as they call it here, is pushing its way south. Fuel mileage is already diminished with the trailer, and with additional mileage degradation due to the wind, this could affect my "legs" or the range based on fuel consumption.

Does it make a difference? Well, I normally get about 42 mph with this vehicle, and two-up with the trailer, about 39 mph. Today I check the fuel mileage and it runs around 31 mph! That's a whopping 25% reduction in fuel mileage! Wind makes a huge difference, and even more so with a trailer because of the turbulence it causes behind the bike; normally the air flow is relatively smooth as the still air pocket collapses around the motorcycle and the trailer redirects the air flow, but that is all brought to naught by a crosswind. A crosswind while towing a trailer degrades mileage even more than a steady headwind: The bike's fairing is designed to minimize drag for headwinds, but there's no defense for a crosswind.

Well, that's a pretty technical dissertation. Meanwhile, as the miles streak by, we are once more in awe of the Texas wildflowers. There's no description that can do justice to what we see. For a hundred miles, our eyes are bombarded by the medial strip and roadsides absolutely glowing in yellows, reds, and browns, a magic carpet of flowers that defies imagination. It's such a treat to be a part of this spectacle!

And we watch Texas change over the miles from Hill Country topography to sagebrush desert. "If this were more desert, this would look a lot like Utah," says Kitty in the headset. There is a similarity: Vast flatland basins with flat-topped mesas rising up in the distance. Except here, the slopes are more gentle and there's vegetation everywhere, albeit scrubby juniper pines and sagebrush.

Approaching Fort Stockton for a lunch and fuel stop, the topography changes dramatically. The vast flatlands of West Texas emerge. Gone are the mesas and hills, save for the Davis Mountains lying to our south and in the far, far distance, the Guadalupe Mountains. Some 30 miles from Van Horn, our destination, Kitty and I are guessing if the town is on "our side" of the mountains or on the other side. We guess Van Horn to be on the "other" (west) side of the mountains. We would both be wrong: Van Horn lies east of the Guadalupe Mountains. Distances here in the vast west are so deceiving!

We see some herds of cattle but not a lot; this area seems largely undeveloped except for some natural gas apparatus. In this hardscrabble rocky desert-looking environment, it's hard to see how it would support cattle grazing. This part of Texas is truly sparsely populated.

We check in to our hotel early, at around 4:00 PM, having ridden about 370 miles for the day. Since it's early, I clean the bike and trailer trying to remove the accumulation of 2800 miles worth of bugs. We walk more than a half mile to JR's Bar and Grille, walking past the Red Roof Inn that is almost a national landmark in the Iron Butt community because so many riders have stayed there in Van Horn over the years on their coast-to-coast journeys.

Tomorrow we hope to make our way to the mountain town of Bisbee, AZ, where the temperature is forecast to be only in the 60's. It's another ride of 370 miles but only 120 miles of that on the Interstate. We've traveled just over 2800 miles so far.