Cycle of a Lifetime

Chapter 5

The EFI Club

I'd never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member."

Woody Allen

A quick math question:

If you have six spare inner tubes and you get three flat tires, how many inner tubes do you have left?

In our case that number was zero!

We had been riding from Langtry to Sanderson Texas when we met the two gentlemen who had just infiltrated our borders. After assisting Border Patrol agents to track them down, we immediately got three flat tires in a thirty minute period, proving that no good deed goes unpunished.

We were riding in the middle of the desert (in the heat of the day) and it turns out there was brush growing on the side of the road that produced thorn like flowers. When I first rode over one of those beautiful flowers I thought it was cool how they seemed to be sticking to the tires. I watched the twig- like thorn go round and round, seemingly not doing any damage. Unfortunately for us it took three flat tires to figure out exactly what kind of damage those flowers were causing.

While changing the tires and searching for our six new inner tubes we realized that the small bike pouch under my seat was missing - gone! That pouch contained many of our bike tools, some CO2 cartridges as well as three new inner tubes. Luckily we had three other inner tubes and some other tools that were packed in our panniers. We weren't sure what happened to that pouch or how long it was missing- it could have fallen off the bike or we could have left it somewhere like in the RV in Langtry, but in any scenario we had no choice but to continue riding without any spare inner tubes. Since there weren't many cars on the road we biked on the main road and stayed away from the thorn infested shoulders when possible. We made it that night to Sanderson and checked into the Outback Oasis Motel. Sanderson is by the way the self proclaimed Cactus Capital of Texas.

The next day, a Friday, we were headed to Fort Davis where we would spend the Sabbath hopefully relaxing by a pool and visiting the actual Fort, which dates back to the 1800's. The good news was that on our way to Fort Davis we would pass through Alpine Texas home to the Bikeman Bike Shop. We would only need to make it about twenty five miles until we could stock up on inner tubes and other supplies.

We woke up that morning in Sanderson and went to the convenience store across the street to get some breakfast and snacks for the road. We also got some closure on our infiltrator story outside of Langtry from the day before.

As we meandered through the aisles of the convenience store we noticed a Border Patrol Officer buying some coffee. We said good morning to him, as we did to the other people walking around the store. While waiting on line to pay, the Officer said:

"Hey, are you the bikers who helped us catch those two infiltrators yesterday"

"Yes, we are", Coby responded

I said - "Wow, news sure travels fast in a small town"

The officer then said - "Did you get your maps back?"

We laughed - everything seemed to circle back to the maps

Officer Smenceski explained to us that drug smugglers and gun runners are often sent over the border with maps provided by the people they are working for. Those maps typically have many towns and locations circled, to indicate where drugs or guns need to be picked up or dropped off. Coincidentally our maps also had many places circled on them as well. When we sat down each night to plan where we wanted to end up the next day, we would circle different target locations on the map. The Officers explanation helped us understand the fascination all the Border Patrol agents seemed to have about the maps we had given to the two men. The circles a father and son made on a map while out for a bike ride across America, fit perfectly into the pattern of what Mexican drug lords were also doing. Officer Smenceski graciously took pictures with us next to his patrol truck, and we thanked him for everything he is doing for our country.