To expand a bit on the feul shortage Peter experienced between Nvo. Laredo and Monterrey.
It is clear that this is yet another outcome of trying to cover the maximum distance from the border in the fastest time which means that he stayed on the TOLL MEX 85D and so missed the various easy Pemex locations.
Mex 85 in the first part south of the border is a free and fast 4 laner but then becomes a toll road bypassing all the towns , even outliers of Monterrey with fuel available .
If you split off and follow the old LIBRE highway you will find Pemex in the towns of Vallecillo and Sabinas Hidalgo and several other spots which will give any bike plenty of fuel range without needing to carry your own bottle supply . Ever.
Note also that the bypass really does pass by at a considerable distance and at the exits there are no service clusters of food , fuel and lodging as you might find in the USA . So needing to get off the TOLL 85 means you will be heading back as far as the LIBRE 85 and wasting more time than if you had hied to the LIBRE from its beginning turn off and followed that road south.
This same scenario often applies to many toll roads to distant places in Mexico so always fill your tank before getting onto a toll road if that is your idea of saving time . As a routine always fill your tank at first opportunity in the morning and whenever you pass the half full point.
It is nice to have 500km tank( KLR😃) but never push the limits so that you need to switch to reserve

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http://advrider.com/index.php?thread....207964/page-5 then scroll down to post #93

Guilty as charged. It was my first day riding in Mexico and Latin America. I was nervous and eager to put distance between me and the border, and the all the stories I have heard of border towns. Indeed I expected the services on the tool road to be like the US, which is not the case. I have also allowed myself to be victim of the evil schedule. When I get to the end and look back I hope it was just a phase or a notion that I could get a taste of many places by traveling quickly. Hopefully the next time I will travel slower and take more of the back roads. Stay in little towns and villages longer...

In 2008 I pretty much screamed through Mexico, stopping in Oaxaca for an extended period, then screaming to Belize, per the schedule (meeting my wife...) Leaving Puebla I was looking for a Santander, which took me off the toll road. I got confused by the lettering that designates free verses toll roads and took the local road for a stretch. I passed fields with farmers harvesting flowers with carts drawn with donkeys, so beautiful. Traffic slowed, then came to a crawled for quite sometime, until I realized all the traffic was heading to a commercial wholesale depot. It was there that I saw several pick-up trucks overflowing with with flowers. Turns out the flowers were for the Day of the Dead festival that coming up (and the reason I was in a hurry to get to Oaxaca, perhaps the best place to be in Mexico during the Day f the Dead.) I would have never seen truck loads of flowers if I had stayed on the toll road.

After taking a few pictures security guards with shotguns came over and asked me why I was talking pictures. Holy crap, I thought, these guys are packing serious heat." Just taking pictures for myself" I said. "Oh, that's cool." They were just curious.

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Peter B
2008/09 - NJ to Costa Rica and back to NJ
2012/13 - NJ to Northern Argentina, Jamaica, Cuba and back to NJ
2023 - Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia...back to Peru.

Blogs: Peter's Ride