· Jonathan Cutrer · Cycling · 2 min read
Big Bend at Mile 80
Notes from a three-day ride through the Big Bend area — what the desert does to your thinking when there's nothing left to distract you.
There’s a point around mile 80 where the thinking stops and something else takes over. You stop narrating the ride to yourself, stop calculating how far to the next town, stop checking whether you remembered sunscreen. You’re just moving.
I’ve done enough long days in West Texas to know that this shift is real and that you can’t force it. The desert makes it happen by removing everything else. No trees to count. No elevation drama. Just the road, the heat shimmer, and the sound of your own tires.
The Route
This wasn’t a supported event — just three days of riding out from Study Butte, covering ground through the park and back around through Terlingua. Total mileage came in around 240 miles, depending on which detours I talked myself into.
The Rio Grande Village loop on day two is worth every mile. The climb out is hard, the descent toward the river is genuinely beautiful, and you will almost certainly see something you can’t name.
What the Desert Does
I ride for a lot of reasons. Training discipline, stress offloading, the satisfaction of covering real distance under your own power. But Big Bend specifically does something the Hill Country doesn’t — it makes the scale of things clear in a way that’s uncomfortable and good at the same time.
You are very small. The land is very old. The road will end somewhere that has water, and that’s enough to keep going.
Gear Notes
- Wahoo ELEMNT Roam for navigation — the offline maps are the only thing that works out here
- Two large cages plus a frame bag. Not enough. Bring three water sources minimum.
- Sun protection is not optional. I learned this the wrong way the first time.
More on the full kit and the logistics in a later post. The short version: bring more water than you think, and less stuff than you want.
