Sunday June 19
Tucumcari to Santa Fe
Every day of this ride has been a long, tough challenge for those of us on the old iron. The two days I was on the man van were tough days for my riding partners Sharon Panhead, Cindy Mesmer and Jenny Bass Cycles, so today was a welcome change.
Cindy had some trouble with her bike last night that she thought might prevent her from continuing, but she plugged away at it and got it going. We left Tucumcari as a group, with the addition of Mian Taylor, who joined us in Tucumcari.
Maybe 10 miles out, Cindy realized she didn’t have 4th gear, but a quick stop to adjust the linkage and she was golden.
We had a close to flawless day of riding. Gorgeous weather, beautiful scenery, great company. But what’s a day with the Chix without a u-turn!?! This one was a 17 mile u-turn because at the last gas stop, I flaked and turned the wrong way out of the gas station. However, we did get to see what the black smoke was that we saw in the distance. There was a semi trailer stopped in the middle of an entrance ramp just burning down. There was no semi truck attached, no emergency vehicles around. It was just engulfed in flames and black smoke was billowing up from the fire.
Oh my.
So we turned around and headed in the correct direction and we actually got in to Santa Fe around 3:30.
This was the easiest, breeziest day thus far.
Tomorrow is an 80-mile run up to Taos.
We are having some rain tonight, and tomorrow will be cooler and we may possibly run in and out of rain, but we have been lucky so far in terms of weather.
The Atomic Shovel 