Day 11- Grants, NM > Albuquerque, NM (79 miles)

 May 16

Daily route view:

I will lead with 'no flats'...well, Stuart did flat as we rode into a SAG, which does not count like fixing it on the Highway to Hell. Ok, the Bank of Karma knew I was talking about them...today was a good day overall with some curve balls. No great adventure is complete without a little adversity and surprises. Well, this one was not great: Stuart got some kind of food poisoning yesterday and did what you do when you have that...long night for him, and it meant today's ride would be tough. Many people would have bailed, but it never occurred to Stuart to get in the van. The ride was 79 miles of fairly easy terrain into Albuquerque, but when you've had a hard night after many days of riding, it can be a slog on the bike. All who know Stuart know that he is a tough mother, and he proved it today. We were expecting rain as we left around 7:30 am, and the torrential downpour hit us at mile 25; it was one of those very cold rains that hurt when it hit you. This rain rivaled that one into Bainbridge years ago. We had the right gear on, which helped, and we rode hard in it to the SAG at mile 31. We camped out in the convenience store drinking hot chocolate and trying to get brave enough to go do the next 48 miles. We finally forced ourselves to leave, and thank goodness, we had a hill to climb immediately, which warmed us up a bit. The temperature stayed in the 40's and 50's for the majority of the ride with wind and spitting rain. One of my favorite neanderthal quotes is "there is no such thing as bad weather, only soft people." Stuart is not soft. Another great one that I thought about while we were riding is from Trevor M - 'the best play hurt'. Both fit for the circumstances today. The descent down into Albuquerque was awesome as you can see the whole city from the ridge line that we came down. A few photos below from the day:

Stuart not having fun at one of the SAGS...we all looked like drowned sewer rats.

Some big rocks that we cruised by fleeing the rain.

Right before the bottom fell out...

This is the top of the ridge before you descend into Albuquerque.

You can see from the maps that we have just come through the Navajo nation, and Jeff L sent me a text reminding me that this was where he and my father in law and Bruce Sutter came hunting; that was one of Bill's last big trips like that, and it was cool to think about him while riding in the rain. 

Thanks for the text Lags!

Tomorrow we head into Santa Fe with a pretty good climb, and then we have a day off. Gina and Lisa have just gotten into town here, and Raff and I will spend the weekend with them - woo hoo! Hard to believe that we are two weeks into this! Talk soon...