June 6, 2023
best day yet
Cuba to Santa Fe national forest
I will say that I am feeling much better. Each day the drainage goes down and I hardly have to cough anymore. I think the only thing that might still be getting me is the allergens like dust or pollen. We kinda slept in since our hotel room was at least decent. We are headed towards Abiquiu and there is a large pass to go through. Most of the climbing was in the first 15 miles out of town and the first ten is paved. We saw that there should be a couple rivers up after the big climb, so I only started out with 2L of water. This was pretty nerve wracking on the way up. Most of the climb followed a small creek and I was temped to fill some, but decided to trust the system since I didnt want to cary that weight up. The climb was about 2500' in one go. We had left around 930 am and figured if we could just get the climb done, we could find a campsite and ride the ridge to Abiquiu the next day. It is 72 miles total to Abiquiu.
Line was about 1/4 mile behind us when a truck pulled over in a hurry and yelled "if thats yer friend back there, shes got dogs on her ass". He pulled a U turn and sped off towards the scene. We watched from the hill over. It seemed like she started pedaling again, so we carried on. Later we found that 4 dogs ran out from a house to try and intimidate her. Luckily no bites. As we went up, the climb became increasingly pretty.
The visual appeal was off the charts: Aspen stands, big pines, GRASS, flowers and creeks. After a couple hours, we reached a big creek near the top. At this point we had been off pavement for at least 10 miles. There was a popular hiking spot near this creek that led up to a reservoir. The roadside was sunny and full of dandelions, so we stopped for lunch. We filtered some water even though the "big creek" was supposed to be a couple miles further.
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We ate wraps with refried bean paste, hot sauce, and foraged dandelion. It was idyllic. We pedaled on through ups and downs along this mountainous ridge. We got up to around 9500'. The views off the road were great. Apparently we were looking down over a huge collapsed lava dome that had spewed umpteen times more stuff than Mt St Helens a long time ago.
The road was great and the downhills were casual. I couldnt imagine a better day and thank goodness. It was getting pretty tough out here. We did start to get tired around 4 pm and we hadnt seen Line yet after we stopped to pick dandelions. I think she wanted to get to some campsite around 30 some miles in, but it wasnt on my map. The camp spots were getting pretty thin after mile 20, but we wanted to make tomorrow as easy as possible. Eventually, I scoped out this double track/wash off the side of the forest road and found a nice small valley. you could tell it had been raining here since the ground was soft and full of grass. its even thundering as I write this. It is about 50% thunderstorms for the next few days and we are really hoping to avoid a big rain so we dont get stuck in the mud. At least tonight we arent set up on just bare dirt. Since we are at 9000 some ft, its alot cooler and we are just hanging in the tent after eating dinner.
Bonus content:
homemade recipe for tire sealant:
1 part water
1 part RV antifreeze (non toxic kind)
1 part latex mask making stuff from the internet
I put about 200 ml of this stuff in each tire. you could feel it sloshing around, but it should stay wet for a pretty long time! We havent had any punctures yet.
Mileage:32
up:4100
Down:2000
Time:7
Today's ride: 32 miles (51 km)
Total: 379 miles (610 km)
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