Waldo Canyon Road New Mexico - a Three Speed Adventure April Bonus

 I have already filled out the form meeting all the challenges, but I had the opportunity to take a day off, to make up for some of the extra time I spent on the Association for Core Texts and Courses conference.  I have wanted to bicycle on the Waldo Canyon Road for a long time.  You can see it from I-25 as you go back and forth from Albuquerque, or, if you're being smart, from the Railrunner commuter train that travels between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

The full ride ended up being 62.4 miles according to Ride with GPS, and about 7 of those miles were on dirt, so I feel that, while I fulfilled the bare minimum requirements of the Adventure April challenges earlier in the month, with this ride I fully embraced the spirit of the challenge.

I had to wait for the electrician this morning - we have slowly been converting our wiring to copper wiring from aluminum, as we can pay for it, because our house began shorting out and shooting sparks around a couple of years ago.  The electrician said the road has been well maintained since the commuter rail went in, because they use it for maintenance.  I left the house at about 9:15 a.m.

The weather was supposed to go up to the mid-seventies, with a chance of rain in the afternoon, and winds gusting to thirty to forty miles per hour.  It was already fairly windy when I left, but, well, you can't pick your weather.  Somehow, miraculously, most of the time it seemed to be a tail wind.

I took the Arroyo Chamisa Trail down past the Santa Fe Place mall, and road on Governor Miles Road until it hit Cerrillos, the main route into town.  There is a bike lane all the way down to the frontage road.  The frontage road is one of those narrow two lane roads with no shoulder where people go about 60 - 80 mph.  It was busier than I would have liked at that time of day, but it was fine - not for the faint of heart or easily rattled, but fine.

At one point, past La Cienega, you cross over the interstate and follow the road up La Bajada Hill and behind the interstate rest area.  Waldo Canyon Road starts just as you begin to descend the other side.

This is the start of Waldo Canyon Road, and it became dirt about a quarter mile past the point I took the photograph.  I spent a little over seven miles on dirt before coming out in the village of Cerrillos.

I did walk the bike around this corner to make sure it didn't plunge down a sandy, gravelly free fall.  It was steep, but rideable.  On a 67 year old bike, I feel that a little discretion is in order.  Just below there, the road begins to parallel the railroad tracks for the Southwest Chief.  The village of Waldo is near the bottom there, but all I saw was a sign, and a couple of houses in the distance.

I was around the tracks several times today, but I never saw the train.

Once in Cerrillos, even though it was only 11:30, I stopped for lunch and a beer.  It was a nice little place called the Black Bird Saloon.  They were doing a brisk business, and the food was very good, but I also think they may be the only place to eat in the village.

From Cerrillos, I began heading up highway 14 (the Turquoise Trail), back to town.  I kept telling myself that I should not head over to Galisteo.  It's too far.  There's too many hills.  I should have some time in the day to get some other things down.

The thing is, though, the shoulder on 14 is narrow, and still filled with grit and sand from the winter.  It's two lanes, and the traffic was sort of busy, for rural New Mexico.  A lot of pickup trucks that seemed to be in a hurry.  When I came to the turnoff for Galisteo, I took it.

It was hilly, but beautiful,with almost no traffic. In spite of the fact I've been using the Raleigh so often, I was a little surprised that on this longer ride, I never found myself thinking, "Oh my god, what was I thinking bringing a three speed on a ride like this?"  In some ways, the ride seemed even easier than past rides I have taken on the same road on other bikes with more substantial low gears and high gears.  The only possible explanation I could think of was that I spent more time in a lower low than I might have if I had more of a choice of gears.  It gave me more of a feel of its being a touristy thing and not an efficiency thing.  Of course, it could also have been a tailwind, but I wasn't aware of it blowing all that hard at the time.

At two O' clock I reached Galisteo.

I had about sixteen more miles to go at that point, and I hoped to be home by a little after four to help my son on an emergency clothes shopping trip because he had made no clothing plans for tomorrow's prom.  In spite of its being largely uphill from Galisteo, it seemed easily doable.

The road from Galisteo to 285 had some truck traffic - gravel trucks, or sand trucks, something like that, but the traffic wasn't heavy enough to be much of a bother.

The climb up 285 was a slow churn, but I made it up no problem.  Here's the bike at the top, where I drank the last of the quart of water I had brought with me, necessitating the purchase of a Mexican Coke at the gas station in Eldorado.

The rain began showing up in the vicinity when I was heading back into Santa Fe on Old Las Vegas Highway.  Luckily I avoided all but a few drops of the rain, but the wind was gusting so much, it almost brought me to a standstill at one point.

I finally arrived back home at 3:45 p.m., just as the rain started to fall.  It was one of those sudden passing storms.