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.
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.
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.
