May 19, 2023
Day 14: Albuquerque to Santa Fe
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This was odd. Some context first though.
The forecast was for rain and possible thunderstorms. Whilst it wasn’t raining at the hotel, a look up the mountain we were just about to climb left no doubt that it would. The route started with a 7 mile climb towards the Sandia Mountains and we reached the rain in the first couple of miles. We turned onto a bike path for about five miles and then left onto a freeway to continue up into the mountains. By now it was heavy constant rain and the road was awash, despite the gradient.
A couple of riders had gone ahead and I soon found myself on my own on a wide perfect road with a 4% gradient that lasted for 10 miles. There were several coffee stops, but it didn’t seem worth the effort to sit around cold and wet.
After the summit the road bounced along between the mountains for another 10 miles and I began to realise something was different. Apart from the noise of the rain it was very quiet. This was perhaps the first quiet road since LA because even when we’d been off a freeway we’d been on a parallel frontage road. The route was marked as The Turquoise Trail, passing through beautiful hills covered in scrub and small trees. It would obviously be a real destination, but this was a wet Friday morning in May.
By now I was as wet as possible and whilst it was not really cold I started to shiver violently, which made balancing and steering the bike interesting.
The day’s SAG was at 32 miles. I was surprised to see that I was the second person there as some of the others had peeled off at the coffee stops. My hands were too numb to open any snacks without help from Alena (Thank you!).
I stayed only five minutes and started a big descent (about 1300ft over 7 miles). Ordinarily I’d have flown down this, but the chill factor was making the shivering worse. I still didn’t feel cold! About 3/4 of the way down was Madrid, a hippy village (you could tell by the big cannabis factory). Simon flagged me down from a cafe as he was in the same state. Todd arrived a few minutes later. None of us had been like this before. Simon and I were shaking uncontrollably. I ordered a hot chocolate, which I had to drink through a straw because I couldn’t pick it up. I needed the loo and had to ask a lady to undo my zips for the same reason.
Feeling a bit better we decided to press on. The last 18 miles comprised a gentle rolling climb of about 900 feet through farmlands, homesteads and scrub into Santa Fe. It had stopped raining by now, there was light traffic on a local road and it even warmed up, leaving me feeling relatively dry and comfortable.
As challenging as this was, all the fun made the ride pass very quickly.
At the hotel the crew had set up a gazebo with bike stands and all the cleaning gear. It seemed sensible to wash the bike whilst I was still grubby, but I wasn’t too impressed when the lawn sprinklers turned on and soaked me again.
Fancy dinner booked tonight with Spencer and Chad. Rest day tomorrow.
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Today's ride: 68 miles (109 km)
Total: 964 miles (1,551 km)
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