EP: 5 - Jerod Foster and Producer Madi - Fresh off the trail, we recap the 2024 Texas Tech Adventure Media Bikepacking class while driving through the Chihuahuan Desert

Episode 5 finds us in far West Texas, driving into the late night/early morning - under the star filled sky of the expansive Chihuahuan Desert. My part time cohost Jerod Foster joins me along with producer Madison Walker Martin for this moving (literally) truck cast as the three of us ride in Madi’s Ford Ranger to pick up a re-supply vehicle we left in the desert.

 

The podcast opens with the hum of asphalt as we careen down the River Road (FM 170), between Lajitas and Presidio, Texas. Don’t get too comfortable with the siren song of asphalt. We turn down a gravel road en route to Big Bend Ranch State Park’s Sauceda Ranger Station, located near the center of the massive 311,000 acre state property. The washboard laden road undulates and serpentines through a spectacular desert scape. It’s 11:00 pm and all we see are what Madi’s headlights illuminate, but our senses are heightened and the conversation flows.

 

You can hear the stutter-bumps in the road (it shakes our voices) and the gravel crunch under the Ford Ranger’s tires as we recap the 2024 Texas Tech University Adventure Media Class taught by Jerod Foster and episode four’s Lindsay Kennedy. It is a bikepacking class that sees 16 students traversing – by mountain bike - the rugged interior of Big Bend Ranch State Park. We rode six days, 100 miles and camped five nights. The students record the trip through digital media and produce several short documentaries for their final class project. They live by bike and work by bike. The pedal powered machines are their home and production vehicles.

 

This is my fourth year covering the class and each time I walk away inspired, sun baked, and filled with an immense amount of joy and promise that this next generation is awesome-er than mine. They are ambitious, hard-working, smart, and fearless…   Well -  that’s not entirely true. There is fear and uncertainty, on this trip and in life. These intrepid students know that, but they face those fears head on and tackle all obstacles ahead. If Adventure Media had been around when I was in college during the 90s, I would have never had the guts to take it. These Red Raiders rock! It was an honor to ride, camp, and break bread with each and every one of them.

 

Movies referenced in this podcast are Tin Cup and Fandango, both starring Kevin Costner. Airwolf, the helicopter action show from my youth did not get a mention.