Southern New Mexico has been an unexpected treat to see and ride thru. Riding east from Globe, Arizona to Safford was dry and littered. Out of Safford you head into the mountains and eventually climb a dry almost barren pass to about 6,400′ head toward Silver City, New Mexico. Lots of rolling hills but at least it’s greener, in fact the transition at the top of the pass was most remarkable, almost like the changing sets of a theme park. From hot and dry to green and cooler. No wonder the border is where it is.

I’d heard of Silver City and imagined it to be close to a New Mexico version of Durango or Bend, Oregon, but there weren’t any tall pines that I remember. However, just north and east of town is super ride toward Emory Pass (8,200′) with deeply forested steep canyon that was a pure delight to climb up thru. Only bummer was the wind was on the nose for the 19 mile descent on th other side. Rather than make it a 112 mile day we opted for stay in Hillsboro, a cross between living movie set of a 1950’s stage stop (actually a relic of a copper mining boom) and a contemporary ghost town. Excellent 1950’s style chocolate shakes and homemade pies.

On into the Las Cruces valley which was unbelievably rife with agriculture of many kinds. Not just the famous Chilies from Hatch, but potatoes, cotton, corn, hay, alfalfa, dairy farms and most surprising acres and acres of pecan orchards. It made the trek into Las Cruces that much faster seeing all cultivation just north of the Mexican boarder.

Oh, we finally saw another touring cyclist loaded with all his panniers a bedroll on the backrack. He was out of Gila Bend of all places and just making a 3week loop up to the Four Corners, including a section of the Great Divide trail (Del Norte to Chama) and on back thru Silver City to Gila Bend.

The first week of the east bound Southern Tier must be the hardest for several reasons, even with sag support. Establishing a routine would probably be the hardest. Making sure that you’ve packed, charged and loaded all those things that you’ll need for the day’s adventure. Because the first week’s route is primarily thru desert and limited re-hydration resources, you’ve got to pay extra attention to food and water. Our capacity for liquids is just over a gallon at 136 oz comprised of a 3 liter hydration bladder and two 20 oz water bottles. We carry Gatorade, for the electrolytes in the water bottles, and plain water in the hydration bladder, which gives a range of about four hours or a little more. If there is a convenience store of any sort we can augment liquids easily.

Food is a bit more problematic in that we’re burning close to 5 000 calories a day and that’s a lot of food to consume. At the one week point we are already tired of forcing down big Mexican or Italian dinners each night. Eastern Arizona, has had some great Mexican restaurants, but a large combo plate after a full day’s exercise is hard to eat even when it’s delicious. I will admit to enjoying several 850 calorie milk shakes mid-day, and they weren’t a problem as they were cold and delicious. We’d settled on taking two Subway sandwiches for the long hauls without a lunch possibility, supplemented with bars and gels along the way. If we know there might be a diner midday we’ll plan on that, but across the desert that hasn’t been a possibility.

Part of the organization hassle is provisioning the night before, when we’re tired and ready to put up our feet up. Because we’re departing by 5 am on the desert stretches, it’s impossible to find anything open that early. Also because we’d been traveling a couple of hours in the dark we have to make sure our headlights and tail lights were charged, not to mention phones, cameras and my iPad. Add in the necessity of washing your riding togs and blogging, then your non-riding time is filled up quickly.

I now understand why my friend and touring partner for the latter half of the Southern Tier Don Ahlert, says that he’s glad he did it, but won’t be doing it again. I’m sure the question most will ask is “Isn’t too hot?”. Actually I found that when your are riding you don’t notice the 100 degree temps. I did feel like my skin was taking a beating even with SP 120 sunscreen. Hydration is the big issue, we consumed over 240 ounces one day and were still thirst unquenched when we went to bed.

Remember the magazine called Arizona Highways? Those beautiful pictures of distant mountains, cactus, and sandscapes. We are seeing all those beautiful things and more. When you drive along the highway at 60+ miles an hour you can only focus on the far view, like cactus with special lighting or an Ocotillo turning yellow with the Fall season, maybe the morning alpenglow or Saguaro Cactus sentinels guarding their slope. Unfortunately the “more” mentioned above is even more visible riding a bicycle at 12 to 15 miles an hour. That “more” is the bar ditch and usually detritus that comes from the convenience store a couple of miles back. What occurred to me today while riding along seeing all the Adopt a Highway signs “in loving memory of [someone]”, was that they pay tribute to the memory of someone by throwing trash along their section of Highway. I guess the more trash in their section the higher you regard that person. Highway 70 south of Globe, Arizona has more trash per square foot than any other road I’ve seen. If Greenpeace rode bicycles there would be a major movement somewhere in that neighborhood. The ride is great, but I did spend some 80 plus miles thinking about why littering was okay in this section of America and few other places. It could be that almost every vehicle here is a pick-up and every bit of trash blows out of the bed. It could be that the locals are primarily miners from the open pit copper mine. And it could be that these foothills are home to a large Apache tribe that appears to be less affluent and environmentally aware than those in Colorado. BTW you should be checking Ivan’s Blog at jgicblog.com as he’s doing a blow by blow rendition of this Southern Tier ride. ; ;

Saddest thing I’ve seen along the roadside was this 3rd generation iPad squashed and slid over to the gravel shoulder. One wonders for miles, what was the occasion of it’s demise? Was it “set” atop a car while the owner searched for keys? Was it the source of a raging “domestic” (A Kiwi expression for a family argument), and the trumping spouse sent the Silver tablet out the window? Or was this final solution to not getting Siri to give an appropriate answer? Probably just pissed at AT&T service.

When I traveled the eastern half of the Southern Tier bicycle route a couple years back, we could tell what state we were in by the roadkill. Armadillos in east Texas, turtles in Louisana, and tiny deer in Florida. I guess since we were close to the Tech Center of Arizona near Chandler they run over iPads.

My second day, Ivan’s third, turned out to be much longer than we had expected. We originally planned to only go to Calexico but the downhill and easy riding in the morning got us to that destination about 9:30 AM. After a quick fuel-up of Gatorade, sandwich, and consultation with our SAG, we decided to carry-on towards Yuma – which would be a total of 115 miles for the day. The plan started out well but by the last 40 miles of the afternoon, the ride turned into very rough roads and hard going. Old Highway 80 became a desolate and abandoned road that was checked with expansion cracks every two to three feet as well as having serious asphalt deterioration. Even along Interstate 8 the shoulder was bumpy with raised joints every 10 feet. I don’t remember any of the back roads in Thailand being as terrible as these roads.

Needless to say, we were pretty done-in at the end of that day, and it wasn’t until the next day at about mile 80 that Ivan noticed that my rear wheel was out of true. It seems as though the pounding we took the day before busted my rear hub spoke flange, and one of the spokes was no longer anchored. I was able to carry-on by opening up the brake calipers completely.

We stopped at a roadside rest call Dateland, which has an historic airfield, not to mention super date milkshakes, and shortly thereafter we had another mechanical failure. Actually it was more of an electrical failure, a failure of the heart. Ivan noticed that his heart monitor reading on his Garmin was tacking up to the 170s. We rested for short while under an overpass where his pulse still wouldn’t slow to less than 150 beats and felt to this aging paramedic (me) like Atrial-Fib. We moved moderately to a rest stop and called for the SAG to pick us up at about mile 86 for the day. Our back-to-back centuries were foiled.

After a shower and short rest in the Gila Bend motel, the tachycardia and arrhythmia’s persisted, so we took Ivan to the closest hospital, which was in Chandler, south of Phoenix. As we all know once you “present” to an ER with any form of cardiac issues, they run you thru the gauntlet of tests and billable charges. 24 hours on the roller-coaster of tests, questions, waiting and with two differing opinions on the cause of the A-Fib, he was released famished and okayed to continue the ride.

A trip to Performance Bicycle was all I needed to replace the rear wheel. No questions, tests or waiting involved, but it wasn’t covered by MediBike either.

For those who missed the 2010 version of my Rim Trail ride, here is the low-down on what, where, who and when. The White Rim Trail is a 100 mile four-wheel drive road in Canyonlands National Park just west of Moab, Utah. Here’s the link for more detail. White Rim

In order to “ride” the White Rim Trail, you need to get a camping and travel permit. It is very much like a river permit. You enter a lottery and if you win the lottery you get to take 15 people on the selected date. Our trip was a supported trip where we took two trucks to carry our gear and mostly water. 100 gallons of water is what we took along. Not to mention five coolers loaded with ice and food. For those of you who have been on a Grand Canyon river trip or actually any multi-day river trip it is very much the same with all the conveniences being carried along with you.

As you can see we set up a pretty elaborate kitchen, thanks to Marti from Carbondale. He has most complete Galley set up of any river outfitter that I have seen. We are even able to pull out a condensed version of the kitchen for lunch stops including umbrellas.

The campsites are about 20-25 miles apart. And there’s only two or three campsites at each of those locations. So you do not see too many other travelers or cyclist along the way. Needless to say, this is the desert at it’s most beautiful and serene state. Various red and colored sandstone geological features give stark contrast with the deep blue sky. Because it’s so dry and arid, there aren’t very many insects or animals, so it’s possible to sleep out under the stars without a tent.

The ride is easier than it looks, since the daily mileage is only about 20+ miles with frequent stops to admire the vistas, rock scapes and distant river valleys. This region is actually the Island in the Sky because both the Green River and the Colorado River converge close by. We were able to swim in both rivers for a welcome treat. A mountain bike with very low gearing is a requirement to climb all the hills and their wide tires are the only way to get thru the frequent sand pits.

Best of all are the people along for the ride. This group has been guiding and running rivers for almost 40 years and it’s a treat to hear the stories and adventures they’ve experienced. I’m lucky to have caught up with my long ago friend who’s invited me along on these last two times.

Durango was the host for the 2012 USA Pro challenge bicycle race from Durango to Denver in seven individual stages. The town has been preparing for the race over the last six months and especially the last week. Every volunteer possible was setting up for the race.

The town was expecting 20,000 visitors but the realists were only expecting 10 to 12,000. I was a volunteer on two different days. The first date bagging parking meters and the second day I was a Course Marshall (Word Press sucks).  Some anxiety rose in the days leading up to the race as there just weren’t the crowds checking into motels and crowding the the merchants.  However on race day all was right, the crowds swarmed the starting line 5 to 10 people deep.According to the race coordinator, “the best overall start to any stage race in the US that he’s ever seen”.  The enthusiasm has lasted thru the week as many Durango folks (including some that never ever watched a bicycle race before) are glued to their computers and mobile devices watching the remaining stages of the USA Pro Challenge. http://radioshacktourtracker.usaprocyclingchallenge.com is the URL to watch for yourselves.  And if you just want to see a uTube video of the start, check out this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-kQ5g3bLM

Last pass was Carnero at 10,166′

Knowing that I wasn’t going to go past Del Norte made the last day almost anti-climactic except for the climb to Carnero Pass.  Just south of Del Norte is one of the tougher climbs up Indiana Pass to 11,910′, but I’ll have to do that one another trip. The entire Great Divide route is 2,900 miles from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, Mexico.  I’d done much of the Colorado segment, somewhere close to 500 miles in 5 days and was happy to know I can tackle this kind of adventure.

Cannondale Super V tricked out for bike packing. Full camping, clothing and food on board. Water and electronics in a small backpack

My generously-donated 90’s Cannondale Super-V, is in need of some serious help.  The rear shock is almost spent, the bottom bracket needs an overhaul, and the brakes won’t adjust far enough from the rims that they don’t occasionally drag.  It has served me well for a number of years on many bike-packing and single track adventures, but now I need to investigate alternative saddles and figure out what the loud creaking is when climbing under torque.  A new(er) mountain bike could be in my future.

Here’s the Spot track if you didn’t get to follow along.  The URL for my Spot device I carry on all my solo hikes and rides is http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=06sdbN7n5jDTx6JLO0a2IU4QYlG5sK3Hn  

I’d heard that Al in Indy was really fascinated watching my Spot track on the web, probably much the same way we enjoy watching his track across the ocean in Dragonfly.  So as I climbed the next 3 passes I kept wondering if Al was fixated on his computer hitting Refresh to see how I was doing.  I hadn’t published the site beforehand because I wasn’t so sure I would complete the journey, but Stanna let the word out as people checked in and learned I was quixotically challenging myself.

With a couch to sleep on and a warm shower it was easy to manage an early start, hoping but not planning on summiting two of the last three passes on my limited Great Divide route.  I knew I’d have to camp, it was just a matter of how far and when.  The butt butter got me much farther than I’d imagined and the only thing stopping me from the second pass was the terrific blasts of thunder and lightning not to mention dark black skies threatening to stop me just about at the summit.  So I bailed out about 3 miles from the top of Cochetopa Pass and hunkered down in some tall pines.  As it ended up, not a drop of rain came but the storm front winds sure blew hard.

Over the pass, I learned three young ladies were just ahead when I stopped to ask about water from a camper.  They weren’t that easy to catch on the downhill and it took several hours to catch them just starting uphill.  These gals each had a mountain bike with a Bob trailer carrying “I don’t know, probably 35 pounds” each.  This was the third year in a row they tackled a one-week segment of the Great Divide Trail and were happy to manage 35 to 50 miles a day.  They reported never having to “hike-a-bike” any of the route so far which is impressive considering they were pulling trailers.

Here’s a shot of my alpine bike packing camp just before Chochetopa Pass halfway between Salida and Del Norte.  Click on any of the photos to enlarge.

By the time I reached Salida in the mid-afternoon of the third day, my butt was talking to me, and I’d already decided that I’d look up a close friend of the Georges (my sister’s family) who lived in town and often put up travelers who pass thru.  It was a great decision as I not only got a good rest, excellent home-cooked Salmon Packet meal, but realized I could purchase some “butt butter” in the cycle shop two doors down from her apartment.

I’d, once again, met two cyclists just as I entered the crux intersection to Salida.  These two 21-year-olds from California were doing the entire Great Divide route as a summer training exercise for their college cycling season.  They asked, after learning I was from Durango, if I knew any of the Fort Lewis College racers they competed against.  (FLC has a nationally known, highly competitive team).  They also encouraged me to head out with them, but fortunately I needed re-suppling and a good night’s rest.  They evidently are only averaging 70 miles a day, so I figured I might catch them, but never did.

I was continually surprised to learn, upon asking, that no one seemed to know how much weight they were carrying.  As you can see from the photo they had quite a load as well.  My base weight was 12.5 pounds – “Skin-out” total, without food and water, was 16.5 pounds.  Add in 15 pounds of consumables, of which 6.5 pounds is water and I had just over 30 pounds on the bike when fully loaded.  Fortunately my weight would go down by 2 pounds for each liter of water I drank.

One provisioning trick I learned purely by chance was to buy a foot-long Subway sandwich in the towns I passed thru and use half for dinner and the other half for my breakfast (breakfast being after about an hour early morning cycle).  The energy pick-up I got shortly after half a Buffalo Chicken special was remarkable.  And half a Subway was little more than the cost of a granola bar in the convenience stores.

One morning I realized I wasn’t cycling alone

In Durango we forget about long shadows in early mornings and late evenings.  This morning I wanted to photograph my shadow with my iPhone (not an easy task just getting the Ap turned on, let alone framing a photo).  Fortunately one is worth showing here.

By day three I was feeling almost cocky, having knocked off almost 200 miles in two days and as I came into the waypoint town of Hartsel, Colorado I saw another cyclist coming the opposite direction toward that same intersection.  We met up and I asked if he was perhaps the Italian racer I’d noticed on the Great Divide website who was since coming north.  He said, “No, I’m Austrian and my wife (pointing down the road south) is from Switzerland”.  He was more fully loaded with panniers than any tourer’s we’ve seen, rigged with both Ortlieb front and rear panniers, a large Ortlieb duffle on the rear rack as well as a handlebar bag and a frame full of water bottles.  His wife had the same set-up when she arrived.

Of course I asked where and when they started, and immediately felt like my previous two days were meaningless in comparison to their cycle from Patagonia heading for northern Canada.  It was also interesting to note that they were sporting German 14 speed internal hubs with a single front chain wheel.

First Camp on private land at dusk after about 108 miles and 2 passes from Kremmling

Second day was the longest at somewhere over 108 miles.  (My odometer bellied up in the rain the first day so I don’t have an accurate measure other than using the maps.)  It’s easier to ride long days when you’re solo, have great distances to cover, prefer to find some camp with trees, and the late afternoon thunderstorms are brewing.  Rather than set up a camp and sit out a passing storm I often opted to ride though until about 7 PM hopefully skirting the storm and reducing my “tent-time”.

By this time I was surprised to learn that the Great Divide route was primarily on back county roads, Forest Service and old logging roads.  I’d envisioned single and double track segments which really aren’t included, unless to regard the narrow line thru miles of washboard roads as single track.  As many forums and articles said you don’t need a FSR mountain bike for this route.  My “craigslist” aluminum road bike (which I treated as a rental car in Thailand) would have navigated all the roads dispatched by the Great Divide trail maps.  This was by no means a disappointment, just a frank realization that almost anyone can traverse this course, given motivation, time, water and food.

South Park

For example crossing South Park on a back road is a long, long open plain.   Fortunately I was able to traverse it early in the morning before the strong winds fetch up.  I’d heard from the Warmshowers travelers that this section in the wind was a 6 MPH grind.