Day 12 Gallup, NM to Grants, NM
67.7 miles
3:52 time,
2,800 feet of climbing
Today we reached the zenith of our tour literally at 7,245 feet above sea level. We crossed the Continental Divide in New Mexico. Although we had to be on the interstate for 11 miles, we stayed on historic Route 66 most of the way. I was going to buy a route 66 sign at the rest stop at the Continental Divide, but it wouldn’t fit in the back of my bike jersey and I didn’t have enough duct tape to tape it to my helmet. Duct tape is a funny topic. Many of you may know that my carbon handlebars are splinted with cut down spokes and two hoses clamps securely held in place by duct tape. Inquiring minds may want to know exactly why would one buy $300 carbon bars that break that are then repaired with a roll of 2.99 duct tape. I am asking myself the same question as I now have carbon/duct tape bars.
The ride was good and very short, with our time being a little less than four hours. That always makes it a lot of fun as it means I can relax at the hotel and have more free time to catch up on the website. For all you Houstonians checking in, Jed was a climbing machine today and although he barked with the big dogs, he couldn’t quite run with the big dogs. Actually he is a very strong biker. Anytime I come in late I use the excuse that I had flats or I just decided to take the scenic tour. But the good thing about bikers is that you can lie, they can know you are lying and you can know that they know that you are lying and the game continues…..it’s kind of like fishing without the hassle of baiting the hook. If a biker says he isn’t racing, he is, if he says he is racing he is just baiting you to take off and use all your energy. Heck as a biker you don’t even need to buy the boat.
OK, now for the fun stuff. I got to eat real chicken fried steak today. Now you have to have the right pronunciation. Its chicken friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiied steak. Pushing my luck I asked for fried okra. The waitress replied, “what do you think boy this is the South”? Obviously I didn’t edit for her grammatical errors and most of the time I don’t edit for my grammatical errors.
We saw a post office that was so small that it didn’t have the name of the post office or town on the building. I took a few shots of the two houses next to the post office and if you look closely you’ll think we were in West Virginia. That’s about all there is to that.
Once again, we had the headwinds. I’m actually looking at the positive side of these dreaded head winds. They build strong legs and certainly improve your character. Unfortunately, that’s not why I’m doing this tour, but for now I’ll just continue to pretend that headwinds don’t bother me.
Tomorrow we head into Albuquerque (rhymes with turkey) and we have a few climbs again before heading up to Santa Fe for some big climbing.
Signing off……….
