Cycling and other musings
53 miles, 2008 feet climbed
Today’s winds were worse than yesterday’s. I vowed to get to the Texas state line on my bike and then evaluate. The evaluation went like this–I’m not being paid to do this, instead I’m paying. I decided not to beat myself up with another four hours or so of wrestling my bike against the winds. I took a van ride for the remainder. Some of those who stuck it out didn’t arrive at the hotel until 7 pm.
Continue reading “Day 18: Tucumcari, NM to Dalhart, TX”82 miles, 2211 feet climbed
Today’s ride was shortened from 109 miles due to the fires to the north of Las Vegas. For the same reason, instead of riding from Santa Fe to Las Vegas yesterday, we spent another rest day in Santa Fe. I’m not complaining because Melanie and I had more time to spend together before she drove back to Albuquerque to fly home.
So we began by loading into the SAG fleet, augmented by two rental passenger vans and drove about 2 hours towards our designated starting point at what would have been the first SAG. Had we ridden to Las Vegas, it looks like it was all on frontage roads, avoiding I-25. We shared the same views from the vans.
Continue reading “Day 17: Somewhere east of Las Vegas to Tucumcari, NM”67 miles, 4633 feet climbed
Today began with about 6 miles of steady elevation gains. A little downhill respite and then a continued climb to today’s SAG at the 32 mile mark. Melanie, having done a little shopping in Albuquerque, passed me before the SAG and stopped for a visit. Based upon nothing in particular, I’d assumed that New Mexico Route 14 was a canyon with narrow, twisty, roads. In fact, it was a four-lane road for the first half, narrowing to two lanes near and past Madrid, and then busy roads into Santa Fe. The terrain was more medium-sized valley than canyon.
Continue reading “Day 14: Albuquerque to Santa Fe, NM”79 miles, 1686 feet climbed
Another day with less Interstate, more frontage roads. I had two flats while on the Interstate, one a 1-inch nail which deflated my tire in a second, the other a slow flat from a tire wire. A SAG van was close for each, allowing me to use a floor pump to bring the tire pressure up to a full 100 lbs rather than the 70-80 lbs I can achieve with my fame pump.
Continue reading “Day 13: Grants to Albuquerque, NM”66 miles, 886 feet climbed
Much less time on the Interstate made for a more peaceful day, with one exception–five miles of bad road, as the expression goes. That was part of the otherwise nice frontage road which was in the process of being refreshed. It was at the stage where the top layer had been ground off, leaving teeth marks from the grinding tool. Extremely buzzy at the handlebars, to say the least. Going faster helped a little, but not much. The one bronze (not going to silver here) was that it proved the vibration reducing capabilities of my Cane Creek eeSilk seatpost, purchased after riding a different kind of bad road on the 2019 America North tour. My arms and wrists were feeling every little diviot but my butt wasn’t feeling any of it.
Continue reading “Day 12: Gallup to Grants, NM”93 miles, 1873 feet climbed
Just about as long as yesterday, with 1000 feet more climbing. The climbing was gradual, though, just constant. Add a time zone change and 45-minute rail crossing delay, and I just had time to clean up before dinner.
Continue reading “Day 11: Holbrook, AZ to Gallup, NM”96 miles, 807 feet climbed
Today was a fast day, the first half downhill the second uphill, though less steeply so than the downhill. Some felt aided by a tailwind but it felt more like a crosswind to me. Almost all of it was on I-40. I’ve now concluded that Arizona’s Interstates have even more tire debris than California’s something I thought impossible. Plenty of flats to go around.
Continue reading “Day 10: Flagstaff to Holbrook, AZ”47 miiles, 4849 feet climbed
I knew about today’s climbing because Melanie and I drove both up and down it about 10 years ago on a trip to Sedona. My memory of it was steeper than it turned out to be, though. That’s not to say that it wasn’t a significant effort as we were gradually ascending the whole day with a few brief descents along the way. And once we reached the top of the last climb, it was essentially flat into Flagstaff.
Continue reading “Day 8: Cottonwood to Flagstaff, AZ”44 miles, 2674 feet climbed
More climbing in the west, with a kick-ass downhill to finish. For days like this, I’m going to start adding the elevation profile, copied from my phone’s app that downloads the data from my bike computer.
I apologize that there are no photos of Jerome, a former mining town, now a tourist destination. I seem to gravitate to the natural scenery, unless there is some irony involved.
Continue reading “Day 7: Prescott to Cottonwood, AZ”60 miles, 5709 feet climbed
Half the miles and nearly twice the climbing from yesterday. Getting to the first climb up to Yarnell was a slight, steady climb at a 1 to 2% grade. The climb itself ranged between 3 and 6 %. Following a transit of the Peoples Valley, we had a rolickin downhill; I saw 40 mph for a few seconds and was cruising in the 30’s.
Continue reading “Day 6: Wickenburg to Prescott, AZ”