Day 2. Up at 3:15 and on the road at 3:50. Slept pretty well on a bench outside the store. My headlamp Woke up the swallows that are nesting under the roof…they didn’t seem too happy with me.
5am not paying attention and ran off the road and crashed. These roads are basically sand, so if you hit the edge or a sand pocket it’s easy to go down. Couple that with riding in the dark and it’ tough. Fortunately a soft landing.
Posted to the fb group a lot of people use who does this ride asking about the availability of water. This is a pretty remote stretch. See the screenshot of the reply I received in the photos link…some tough people out here. I ended up just carrying a lot of water 🙂
10 minutes later saw eyes in the road about shoulder high. I stopped….the only problem with that is when I stop my light goes out. It’s powered through a generator hub on my front wheel. When I’m moving it’s bright, but have to be moving for it to work. I fiddled around trying to find my flashlight—still getting familiar with where I’m storing everything. I didn’t think I would like riding at night, but was pretty nice. Temp in the 70s, pitch black, the sky full of stars, and no cars. Oh, it Was a cow.
Day break about 6:30…nice to be able to see.
Lots of loose sand…really have to concentrate.
5:40 hit 5,000 feet. Been slowly climbing…think I started at around 4,500 this morning.
6:00….getting Hungary.
7:45 and 5577 feet. Just a slow climb. Sun is out and getting hot…wind out of N, N-W and I’m generally heading in that direction. Not fun.
8:15 spotted a bobcat walking up the side of the road. Got a video of it before he spotted me.
9:00 5900 feet. Hot. Running low on water
9:42 turned right on pavement to silver city. This was a long 17-18 miles with a couple serious climbs. Found an RV site 10 miles out. No one at the office but was able to fill my water bottles at a spicket and rear in the shade for a bit…getting very hot—mid 90s. Made it to silver city around 1pm. Stopped at the first gas station I spotted and had ICE for the first time in two days….Diet Coke and ice tea.
Rolled into town, got a room at the xxxx, took a shower to wash off two days of NM dirt, cranked up the AC and took a 3 hour nap. Eating at Dennys. Heard from Stuart. He and Will got here this morning. They’re planning to roll out at 8 or 9. Would go with them, but need more sleep and need to do a little bike maintenance.
This far have seen snakes, roadrunners, bob cat, antelope, and lots of cows.
pics-vids:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wojxg1qe63zm2h1/AADEplL1P1s9GgxskuuXuILNa?dl=0
