Fini

It was a damp, foggy but uneventful ride to the finish in Amarillo, TX. The route was pretty featureless and long turn less stretches of the road. To pass time Susan and the six of us riding together formed a revolving pace line. Like the name suggests the cyclists form two lines and revolve in a clock wise circle. The line on the right slows back and the one on the left “revolves” on rider at a time ahead of the right line. It sure did help pass the time.

At mile 26 we stopped for a break at the Cadillac Ranch where there are a few old cars buried in the ground. It broke the montony of riding long flat stretch of the road. After that Bonnie, Jim and I started back slowly through the outskirts of the town with a short stop in old town Amarillo for lunch.

We finished riding around 1:30 and then it was time to pack the bicycles for a flight back.

Later in the evening we had a group dinner at the Big Texan famous for its 72 oz stakes. This was followed by a wonderful slide show Susan put together from the pictures of the trip. It brought back some good memories. At the end of each tour, Lon auctions the map he marks each day with progress for charity (mostly their Peru & Africa projects). I won the bid and got the map as a gift for Jim since we have done 3 of these trips together.

Now off for another night of rest and then fly back home tomorrow.

PS, I’ll post an epilogue in a day or two with post thoughts.

We’re in Texas You’ all

Today was the last full day of cycling from Tucumcari, NM to Vega, TX. 80 flat miles. We started the day with another group picture outside the Teepee Curios shop. Supposedly this was for the cover story of the Road Magazine. As we rolled, the scenery changed as we rode through the last of the canyons with Mesa Views into flat lands of the mid-west plains.

We also went through the last of our “dirt” sections, which was 18 miles of beautiful country. We encountered a cattle stampede (I may have caused it by whistling at a herd; some old wooden bridges, ghost towns like Bard. This last off-road option took us out of New Mexico into Texas without any major Welcome to TX signs.

We had lunch at the Midpoint Cafe. This is the actual halfway point of Rt. 66 from Santa Monica to Chicago. It’s in the town of Adrian, where the waitstaff now had a very different accent – the Texas drawl.

After that it was a flat ride into the wind where Lon, Jim, Bonnie and I started together into the wind. We were the last ones to leave lunch but Lon pulled us to the next 5 people, who left 15 minutes before us, as we rolled together into Vega.

Tomorrow we have a short 37 mile day and we’ll get to the final destination motel.

Blue Swallow, Tucumcari

Today was an uneventful 62 mile day. We did have some headwinds but we took it easy after an adventure yesterday. Jim, Bonnie and I rode most of the day together with Jim pulling us into the headwinds. He is riding really strong into the ride with over 1100 miles. We had some options but they seem minor relative to our hike yesterday but were beautiful.

We got into Tucumcari around 2:30, got a milk shake and had a wonderful dinner where a local (third-generation) lady gave us the history of the town. We all love stopping here and staying at the Blue Swallow which has one of the best neon signs on Rt. 66. You always want to stay here a day or two longer.

Tonight we rest before an 80 mile ride into the forecasted headwinds. Note to self: look for a pace line. The day after that is a token 35 mile ride to the finish of the tour.

The most direct route from Las Vegas, NM to Santa Rosa, NM – according to Jim Bradbury.

Note this was written on May the 2nd.




Today’s route included an “explorer” option. Lon has been trying to find the old 66 road from Las Vegas to Santa Rosa. In 2006 when I did Rt. 66 Lon, Jim and I did some exploring and found what we then thought and ended up on the route as the off road option. However, that was not enough for Jim. He spent last night reading Google maps, making hand notes and creating route sheets and maps for what he believed was the most direct way to Santa Rosa. When I heard about this at breakfast, and considering the weather was for showers and thunder, I was not interested and told Bonnie that Jim had gone off the deep end.

It was a very cold ride to the first rest stop and I was the last one to roll in to the rest stop. Jim, Lon, Susan Notorangelo , Bonnie & Susan R were waiting, getting ready to take this new route Jim suggested. I told them that I was going to take the most straightforward way home and take it easy for the rest of the day…but peer pressure kicked in and I was talked into doing this explorer option. OK pack up as much food as you can, since we would not see any store for another 35 miles of dirt and other country roads.

All started fine with a “picture” ceremony at the turn off to the dirt road Jim had scouted. And we followed him reading his GPS for 3 or 4 miles or so and Jim/Susan R pulled over suddenly and went behind the bushes. So what happened guys? We have flats…goat heads for both of them! Susan N. rode ahead while Lon, Bonnie and I stop to help them. Lon looks down at his tires and notes that we may all have flats since there are lots of goat heads around. Indeed I had a bunch of goat heads on my tires, so did Lon. So 4 of us are fixing flats at once. We get done and go ahead and catch up with Susan N, she is just done playing with a snake and filming it, very excited. She gets rolling and finds that she also had flats after all…both tires! We fix those and get rolling again.

Susan's Snake

Goathead!

Flats!

Flat'o'Rama

Lon had the most flats - 10!

As we roll a bit further and reach a watering hole (probably with infested water) for cattle, more flats! Bonnie has a flat too but from a tire wire she picked up on the highway. OK now everyone has fixed flats at least once, most twice and Lon just got going with 4 or 5 flats already. So we are not only putting in new tubes (and out of them) we are patching tubes – the infested water comes handy to soak tubes to find the flats.

At this point we decide we may not even want to fix flats and just walk out bicycles for a while until we get to better grounds. That works to some extent but Jim’s tire is coming off of the wheel so he is forced to fix the flats. This goes on for about a mile or so and then we think it’s safe to ride…or we don’t care.

Walking...

More Walking...

So we fix some more flats and have rideable bicycles but what about roads ahead of us? Gravel, rocks, sand…mostly unrideable red sand. Boy we walked and bicycled where we could for about another couple of hours and gained a few miles. At one time we were really off the GPS “road” that Jim was navigating us and just walking in open land. We were surrounded by mesas and had no clue how we are going to get to the paved road that we were looking for in the town of Colinas. Finally thanks to the GPS we found a road with vehicle tire marks so things started to look promising. Most of us were out of water and had eaten most of what we brought. It took us 4 hours to hike/bike/fix flats and get to a paved road in Colinas (about 12 miles total).



Finally, real road signs!

Now we knew where we were since Lon and I had scouted the end of this road 3 years ago. Lon exclaimed at that point “We cut the route by 6 miles and added about 4 hours. Most direct indeed! We had to climb a steep 15% grade out of the village and head to the interstate. As we started rolling, we thought we had 12 miles to go to I-40 - on paved roads so that should be a piece of cake. After that it’s only 6 miles to the motel on the highway.

Once we started to roll south, the wind started to blow from the west and boy did it blow and then all of a sudden from nowhere we were hit by thunder. I found shelter by a tree, put on my rain gear…so did everyone else and started to head to a gas station on I-40 with rain hitting us from the right with 30 mph steady winds, gusting higher at times. It made it hard to keep the bicycle straight. Susan N, Bonnie and Jim went ahead while Susan R, Lon and I were behind. We had to go a few miles until we turned west and then we would have strong tailwinds, I remarked to Susan. As we started to descend the final climb, I saw Lon drop back…I thought he was probably scouting something or the other on the route as he usually does (and then catch up with us). We got to the gas station with everyone else waiting. Where is Lon shouted Susan N? He’s back there I said. Off went Susan and Jim to look for him – into the head wind. Turns out he had more flats, tried to ride on the wheel but could not so was walking back. Susan N and Jim helped him with the flat and they were able to get back in the storm.

Once everyone regrouped at the gas station, still about 6 miles from our destination motel, it was deemed too dangerous to ride on the highway, we called in the van to come get all the bicycles and us to the finish. It was indeed a long day that ended with a cold shower (no hot water) and a relaxing meal recounting all the events of the evening.

Total miles for the day 62, 12 walking/sliding/riding bikes in dirt, 10 hours riding time, 2263 feet of climbing

PS I have recounted this best I could…comments and corrections are welcome from fellow explorers…or those who have heard different versions of tall tales from them.

May Day! May Day!

First I want to thank Jim for doing the guest blog yesterday. It was great to get another perspective.

Today was suppose to be an uneventful ride – 70 miles with a lot of rolling hills (about 3500 feet of climb) from Santa Fe, NM to Las Vegas, NM. We started the ride on the old Santa Fe trail which is paved over by I-25 for about 20 miles North of Santa Fe. As we got on the highway, there was some construction where the guys were filling cracks in the pavement with tar. I was riding with Lon and he pointed in the distance and said “That does not look good”. We got near the construction and were waved by the guys yelling “Hot! Hot!” but were able to get by the construction without any issue. At one point I whistled to get one of the guy with a blower (I think he was blowing sand from the road) out of out way. About a mile down the road, near an exit we saw the support van parked on an exit with Jim checking things out…Apparently he was following a few riders who rode ride through some of the tar and splattered some of the hot tar on his forearm. There was also a lot of tar on his frame and rear wheel. After taking count of body and bicycle parts, he rode on to the first rest stop a few miles away where he changed his tires that had tar on it. Further down the road, he bought some baby oil and was successfully able to remove the tar (along with some skin) from his arm. I helped Jim bandage the wound and we got on. I hope he will heal soon.

The rest of the ride was more rollers, we stopped at small village of San Jose, which has an old Rt. 66 bridge and looks like a peaceful community.

Postscript for yesterday’s ride – La Bajada hill. I rode up with Lon, Susan, Elenore and David Bell. We took a different path (pre 1920s) which was never paved and has old rocks lined surface. We had to hike more than the rest of the folks who took the path that was built later. I realized this morning that a different set of muscles were soar from the hiking. Here are couple of my pictures from the ride yesterday. Note Lon gearing down his “single speed” bicycle. We know there is trouble ahead.

Tomorrow there is forecast for rain so I am prepared with rain gear.

La Bajada

Guest Blogger: Jim Bradbury

When Anurang told me that I would be his first guest blogger, my first thought, of course, was "I'm not worthy." He has been doing such a fabulous job blogging all through this trip that I really don't think he needs any help from me. I felt like Wilkie Collins when Charles Dickens asked him to whip up a new serialized novel for his magazine. But even as strong and resilient a rider (and PBP veteran) as Anurang "Ringtail" Revri deserves a break now and then, so I'll do my best. 

The worst part of riding from Albuquerque to Santa Fe has always been getting out of downtown. This time around, we used a bike path that quickly and safely got us out of the 'querque. The path was on top of a levee that parallels the Rio Grande. I've been told that a coyote can often be spotted in the area, but I didn't see anything more exotic than a Canada goose. 

To be perfectly honest, the bike path was about the only difference this day between our trip three years ago and our trip this year. You can read all about La Bajada and the trip three years ago at my blog from 2006. (Oh yes, we did have the amazing Susan Notorangelo this year, with her trademark knit helmet cover. This was her first-ever time on La Bajada! Of course she loved it.)



Also, this year, Anurang did not suddenly demand Wet Wipes from me and disappear behind this mound of dirt on I-25. 




Other than that, though, it was another glorious day in New Mexico. 



After dinner, we were treated to a fascinating lecture on the restoration of old neon signs along Route 66 -- some of which work has been funded by the National Park Service. I was shocked to learn that my own favorite sign, at my favorite motel in the whole world, the Blue Swallow, was destroyed by a hail storm shortly after I last saw it three years ago. But, it's been restored. I can't wait to see how it looks in a few days when we stay there again. 

Olde, New and 2x2x2

Yes, you can still get a hearty breakfast for under $5. What it does to your heart is another matter. We usually start the day with a 2x2x2. No it’s not what you are thinking. It's two pancakes or French toast; 2 sausage links/patties or bacon strips and two eggs. Sometimes these come with a side of potatoes or we start with Oatmeal before that. The metabolism at this point is, quoting Jim, a “raging inferno” so it gets us through to lunch with some snacks in the middle.

Today we saw a lot of the old road that is well preserved for the most part from Grants to Albuquerque. It was another 80 mile day with good winds and lot more down than up so it made it possible for us to stop, check out the scenery, visit local churches and do some shopping even.

The food in New Mexico is special too. It is different than Mexican or Tex Mex…and even spicier. It has lots of fresh green or red chilies. We went for a taste of the local cuisine in the Old part of town – group dinner. Delicious! There is more to come since we have another 4 nights in New Mexico.

Last time in 2006 I sent post cards home, this time I am doing blogs, which I believe are also a bit outdated for today…it should really be twitter or iPhone updates to the internet directly. I had thought about it before I left the trip but not everyone I know is on these social networks and I wanted to keep the access to the content “Open”. And here is another idea of social networking…a card from a fellow ride Scott to his friend. This is for you Satellite Jack.

Tomorrow I will try another form of social networking; Jim Bradbury will be doing “guest blog” in my place so you will get another perspective of the trip. Either I am getting clever about how to put together blogs or just tired of doing them every night.