Route 66, Day 9 by Bryan Patterson June 15, 2015 -
This was the day we had been waiting for, a chance to ride 80 miles on
Route 66. We had camped in Grants and were very keen to get on the way.
The tent was packed up quickly and the van filled with all our bags
etc., then a quick breakfast was gotten and eaten with gusto but we
still had to find a bike repair shop for Mark’s bike and the puncture
on Sidd’s. It seems that Grants was a town that didn’t really cater for
bike repairs, but we did find an auto welding shop that cut the axel
cut out of Mark’s bike, but no puncture repair! So we still only
had three rideable bikes. So the decision was taken to do a relay with
the three bikes, and adult rider and two kids – lucky kids what! We
also decided to change every 5 miles, which was a smart thing to do
given the heat during the day. BP, Giselle and Sidd were the first
bikers and keen to get riding. Off we set, and really 5 miles came up
pretty quickly! Sidd has really come out of his shell since the
start when he really wasn’t prepared for this adventure. But now he had
miles under his legs and really wanted to push it. Giselle is a very
good rider and has surprised all of us on this ride. She is actually
great up hills and can leave us all standing – Go Giselle.
With 5 miles up it was Mark, Jeremy and Cristian to get up and go,
which they dually did. Mark was still reeling from the fact that his
bike had not been repaired yet but was determined and once again very
fast over the 5 miles. Not that this was a race! I am trying to make
sure that the cyclists appreciate that as a team and group we should
try to ride together, but let’s be honest that’s not about to happen,
so I was always left at the back being the slowest rider!
It was always good to see the van in the distance and know that you’d
nearly done your 5 miles and were about to get a water and food break.
Seeing the other riders with the drinks and waiting to change was a
welcome site, although at times riders wanted to ride on, but we were
making sure that this didn’t happen as we didn’t want anyone to become
heat exhausted and then not be able to ride.
The scenery was beautiful, with far off plateaus and canyons to our
left and then on the right more rolling hills with more vegetation,
although still the site of sand and gravel along the way. One part of
the ride took us through a canyon with incredibly steep sides and a
gully one side. Still many Wash dips, which I would have loved to see
flooded! We didn’t see much of highway 40 but there was off course the
railroad tracks, which seemed to follow us most of the way! These track
always seemed to run though the towns that we camped in, which meant
that we got the hooting of the engine at night! Seems like these guys
work all hours.
The weather was good but again very hot during the mid-day rides, so a
high sun lotion factor was the order of the day. We could see areas
that seemed to be having rain, in the distance, and hoped that we might
get some rain on this ride.
We were aiming for Los Lunas which was the 80 mile mark, then we would
not be too far from Albuquerque where the next camp site was.
This Route 66 was a wonderful ride, mainly on rough gravel road, but
good enough to bike on and to have the van drive along too, which was a
great, as without the van we would not have been able to make this 80
miles possible. At Los Lumas we were all pretty beat up and tired, so
the van was packed and we made the camp site and set up tent. We had to
get the two bikes fixed the next day and as we were near Albuquerque we
looked up bike shops that we could get to. Fingers X’d that the bike
would be sorted.
