 this guy looks like a cow the number four oh it's so cute gracias por todo amigo suerte con mostal casa luna gracias hombre nos vemos here we go no flat is no crashes no whammies thank you sombrerete what an awesome place i'd love to come back someday today we're heading towards Zacatecas we will not get all the way there maybe a town called Fresno who knows we'll see we just rode by this guy and he goes animo wettos which is like let's go white guys we're starting our morning on a bit of a climb which is a good thing because it's pretty chilly outside we are at 7800 feet above sea level so the air is cold hey john the birds are wishing us well they're singing for us wow oh i can go over there that's so cool oh look at them all that's so cool good morning amigos where did you find john well i found let's see how many we got here we got four more puppies really yeah just on the side of the road yeah it's right by this power oh this is yeah this is just drop them off in the box oh oh look at that they're teeny what are we gonna do with you guys mira what do we do mira you've never been a mom they're just tucked right in here look at that oh buddy how are you doing okay getting little heads in there push this down there you go come on it's water this one looks like a little border collie oh buddy i know mira you're a good girl come on drink up drink drink oh there you go come on smarty pants get in there there's some water get in there get in there there you go here you can hide no we're on our way out of town and i stopped to film the birds and just passed the birds john noticed some little puppies right here and they've probably been sitting there all night i'm guessing and so john's giving them some water poor little guys what do you think hey buddy aren't you cute yeah you are what do we do john i want some of the take them man yeah yeah we could maybe put them in a box take them to town see if we can find somebody yeah we can put them in the in the bike basket here all right guys you're gonna be bike packing dogs for just a moment we're gonna take you to town okay that's already my favorite little mira here's another one john you have five dogs now here's number three look at them so cute in there you got to share mirror you have to share yeah this guy looks like a cow the number four oh so cute so cute i know mira so we've got the puppies four of them and we're near our rancho and we asked a couple people on the road and they said talk to the the guys here so we'll see where this gets us so the owner of the ranch said they are not his and he already has enough dogs so we're just gonna ride into town and find a place for them because they would most definitely die if we just leave them on the side of the road who's in your basket mira yeah it's hard to find a place to sit she's like what in the world is going on here all right you gotta share today the local oxo station asking these guys what we should do if there's like a shelter for dogs or something they all think the dogs are cute but they're all saying i already have a lot of dogs this makes me happy this is a bunch of marixicans coming together to try to help the cause this guy called his sister this guy's calling his friend they're like hey sister her mana do you want four little dogs these white dudes just found them on the side of the road oh viva mexico i love this place everybody everybody's just ready to help no matter what i love it all right okay and it just so happens that the guy helping us is a bean salesman he's got burritos in the back of his motorbike right there have your morning coffee find these puppies you know they're so cute you don't want to just leave them on the side of the road to die because that's what would have happened and i feel better that we found you know some people that are willing to help we got the burrito guy here he's called his sister they know some veterinarians in town so i think the chances these puppies finding a home are pretty good so yeah good way to start the day operation puppy drop is a success burritos and puppies and lots of fun conversation here we go with just one dog i really hope those dogs have a good life you know with some loving owners or treat them right maybe even take them on some bike packing adventures that probably won't happen but i just hope they they do okay because their fate was pretty sealed when we found them they were literally in a ditch and they're brand new puppies their eyes had just opened so i don't think they were to last it a whole lot longer maybe we gave them a little bit more life who knows what their fate is now but we seem to have left them in good hands hi john hey ryan how you doing pretty good how you doing bud good hi mira hi mira mexico we are look at this it's a good country it is a good country you have any marshmallows so we stopped here to get some uh some drinks what do you choose here john i got a uh electrolyte drink yeah and i'm gonna have another humex guayaba it's nice we've been charging ever since our slow start this morning we've put down i think over 20 miles and we haven't seen a whole lot and then this little tienda store popped up on the side of the road here we are riding the highway today has actually been a lot more pleasant than yesterday and i don't quite know what it is maybe we're past the initial shock of it and we've eased in but i also think the smooth shoulder plays a role you know we all love smooth shoulders that aren't like oatmeal and it's been nice and smooth the wind has been pretty favorable and maybe less traffic i don't know but both of us actually all three of us seem to be a little bit more at ease today good job today mira yeah you are what'd you get john i got some mexicans finest abitos bright red harrito 70 years of flavor for everyone i love it mira do you have a new friend old friend introduce your friend mira so we found a fellow bike packer how's it going brother hello yeah all good all good what's your name what's your story uh my name is greg um i'm from london in the uk and uh i'm also on a very big biking trip like john um hoping to head south for the next few years um so yeah enjoying enjoying mexico very much not so much the paved road film break but um oh it's been so beautiful yeah what's your favorite part about mexico oh i mean there's the three things it's the the people the food and the landscapes it's like it has it all i can definitely see myself after this trip coming back and wanting to live it like it's got everything it's pretty special and what inspired you to hit the road for so long uh i do know the pacific crest trail yeah so i hiked that in 2018 i hiked that in 2018 and that kind of towards the end of that i just i just fell in love with the lifestyle of living outside every day and and also moving every day and sleeping in a different place sleeping under the stars every night this is a great interview yeah it's perfect so um this was kind of my plan to to do something like that but longer term and see more of the world and get more of a cultural experience so do you have a final destination um i'm not really putting a name on it as as per se but i'd love to get down to argentina chile you know all the way down there but we'll see i won't be upset if i don't make it down there but the plan is to go as far as i can until the money runs out what did your parents think of this idea uh my mom is terrified constantly terrified still to this day she doesn't know the state of zakatekas and what's going on here so i'm not going to tell her until after i'm through um and my dad loves it were you a cyclist before this no this is my first cycling trip my longest cycle before this was like two hours around london so yeah it was definitely a bit of an adjustment but my knees are getting there all right we've got ourselves a wolf pack greg's coming with us on to the mean highway we've got a canadian an american and a brit sound like the start to a good joke the wind has kicked up a bit the side wind keeps pushing us into the highway not too strong but you know wind is just annoying and it always feels worse when you're on the bike and then when you get off the bike you're like it's not so bad it's kind of nice and it cools you off when you jump back on the bike you're like ah this is the worst headwind ever so we are heading toward fresno at the beginning of the day when we woke up we thought okay we'll get a hotel or something in fresno but since then we've been warned by numerous people that fresno is as bad as it gets there's lots of violence and people are just essentially scaring us away from staying in fresno so we're going to try to go through fresno and stay on the other end of it maybe camp hopefully somebody's backyard i don't know but that's the reality of what's going on here you know we we do our best we wake up we see a map we say let's go here and then the locals say no don't go there and then we usually listen to the locals because obviously they know a lot better than we do hi mira hi you're gonna drag dad over here give me a hug yeah oh there's my girl rumors today look pretty look at all that mira here with a little bit of mexican road dirt yeah how often do you brush her uh it depends if it was something like this maybe you know once a month but uh yeah sometimes a couple weeks sometimes it's daily you know it depends really on the time of year and how dirty she's gotten if we're in a tent whatever so often you brush your hair clearly not very often there's less and less of it to brush so that's that's a good thing and what's that for uh these are some eye drops i got from a vet and just to help moisturize her eye and and keep them healthy there's a lot of dust and dirt and sun and she's in the wind all day long and uh i don't put the goggles on all the time so just to keep her eye health up that's the main thing mira you're such a sweetie just preventative care that's right yeah all right so we are in a hotel in fresno on the very outskirts like an auto hotel like a car motel type thing and it's nice and big and mira has plenty of room to run around look at all this space we're not downtown we avoided the madness of the city we took the local advice and we're feeling safe the guy at the front desk seems really cool and he let us in with the dog sometimes they're not as cool with dogs as you would think in mexico you really have to convince them and say that she's world famous you might want her in here it's going to be good for business but uh you know john and i were talking today about this whole you know the danger the narcos people telling us areas to avoid and you know it's important of course when you're on any adventure to tap into local knowledge they obviously know best and you know locals and people i've met on every single adventure are the ones who have helped me through all the situations on every single bike adventure in my life it's always the people i meet who make these adventures safe you know i can do my best you know but it's there's people out there that i haven't even met that are looking out for me and looking out for us and we really feel that that is true here in mexico people want us to be safe they want us to enjoy their country in a safe way and go back home and tell all of our friends or make youtube videos and we love mexico you've seen in my videos all the the mexicans that i've met and interacted with are absolutely wonderful humans of course there's some bad guys there's bad guys in every single country there's a lot of narco violence right now it's heightened for some reason in this area and uh it's unfortunate and you know i feel bad for the locals who have to live with this threat of violence every single day and we appreciate that they're looking out for us and so does my mom and amelia and i just washed my stinky socks and they're gonna dry in the afternoon sun and i just remembered i can't believe it but i hope our dogs are doing okay that was this morning sometimes these days are so full that you feel like each day is really two days worth of memories but yeah that was early this morning we found a litter of puppies and i hope they have a home now dodging bullets in fresno mexico's city of fear we're living in hell inside fresno mexico's most terrified city so you're saying it's um there's some bad news about fresno so i'm talking to amelia right now and i told her we're in fresno and she just googled it and this is the first thing she sees 96% of fresnians say that they live in fear 96% that's pretty high amount we just walked around and they didn't seem too scared but maybe we saw the 4% that aren't scared uh we're going to be safe i promise i know we're on the outskirts of town it's totally safe and we have a mirror to protect us it's like you're like a hockey goalie ready oh nothing gets past you oh you're the best yeah you are you've been a good sport riding on these highways for the past two days only one more how you feeling about things john good yeah just touching base with friends back home and we're gonna get tidy up and ready for tomorrow and get a good night's back on the road last day of pavement i think yeah and then we're yeah back on to the what i mean trans mexico the northern section yeah so anyway go see zackatecas so that's that should be a lot of fun i love zackatecas yeah and we're having fun riding together yeah we're having fun we can have fun anywhere but pavement's just not as it gets old well it's old because we got these big fat hires and these heavy bikes i mean if you're on a road bike okay but we're not sort of kidded up for riding on the asphalt yeah so it's been a bit of yeah it's been a bit of a grind but we found some good food some good people along the way and we've been comfortable we've had hotels the last three nights more hotels than i've had on this entire trip in this last week yeah that's amazing yeah but it's been good and we're safe that is the main thing yeah like it's not coming home isn't an auction wherever home is and i want to keep her safe i want to keep you safe and me safe so yeah mama dozer is counting on you yeah i got i got this one dozer mama dozer i got this one he's good all right good night buddy bye and good night to you one last kick