Day 38 - Moriarty to Albuquerque, New Mexico

Day 38 of our tour
November 10, 2016
33.9 miles today
(1723 miles, or 2773 kilometers, cumulative)
1778 feet of climbing
(67,274 feet of climbing, cumulative)


This was our final day of riding since we've decided to end the trip in Albuquerque. We both have enjoyed every day of riding and our bodies have held up well. However, we never felt like we had to go to the end of Route 66, but rather that we would make decisions based on conditions. The shorter days, the colder mornings, the wear and tear on our tires (now we have no spares left), and the distance between motels prompted us to decide several days ago to finish today. Plus, the timing will allow us to go home for a while and then pay a visit to our grandchildren before they head east for Christmas break.

Here is the route we rode on the tandem. Purists will note that we left the official Route 66 in portions of Missouri when we made a side trip to visit Jean's brother and his family.

Since we'd had so many flat tires, we began the last day with a patch party. Here are five tubes all patched and ready to put into service if needed:

We were in Moriarty, New Mexico and today we never had to ride on the I-40 but rather used a frontage road all the way to Albuquerque. It was largely the route of the original Route 66:

Albuquerque was Jean's home town. She left when she finished her bachelor's degree and went to Vancouver for grad school, which is where we met. As we hit the road, I asked her if she had driven this particular one much during her Albuquerque years. She said, "Oh sure, the glider club was here in Moriarty."

Jean's father had been a lifelong aviator. He flew P-38 Lightnings in WWII doing weather reconnaissance, and then later was a flight instructor for both powered aircraft and gliders. He taught Jean and her two brothers to fly. Jean remembers many trips to Moriarty when Ken would be teaching gliding or flying the tow plane and she and her mom and brothers went along for the day.

The sky again featured beautiful cloud formations and some long, gentle climbs. Jean enjoyed seeing plants she remembered from years ago:

The ridge in front of us to the west was the Sandia Mountains. They are considered to be the southernmost of the Rocky Mountain range. On the eastern side they rise gently, as they were once a single huge slab of rock pushed upward from the west:

Today featured a delightful long stretch of downhill during the last ten miles. Moriarty is at 6220 feet, and from there we climbed another 1770 feet before stopping at a gas station for a quick break. As we rolled out of the station, the road was slightly downhill. We both thought that more climbing was ahead. Little did we know that we would not pedal again for many miles as we headed toward Albuquerque which is at 5200 feet.

When we reached Albuquerque we immediately saw the water drainage system, as it was alongside a bike path that skirted the eastern edge of the city. The huge drainage system consists of the original arroyos that were covered in concrete, designed to hold large amounts of runoff water:

Looming above the city of Albuquerque is the western side of the Sandia Mountains. While they were a gradually rising formation on the east, here on the west they drop down precipitously with steep sides:

Jean was excited to see vegetation along the bike path such as this cactus:

And some fall color:

One particular sighting of some wildlife got her extra excited, as she had never seen it while growing up here. Do you see it?

We saw two roadrunners, and here is an enlargement of one of them from the middle of the previous photo:

As for all those tubes, we used only one today. Back near Moriarty I could tell the bike was sluggish, and we stopped to check. Sure enough, a bulge had developed on the rear tire as it had worn thin. That tube never burst, though. All I did was replace the tire with our last spare. 

Then, along the bike path and only four blocks from Jean's brother's house, the rear tire went soft. We decided we wanted to ride rather than walk to the end, so we took thirty minutes to replace the rear tube for the final short ride.

It has now been a bit less than 48 hours since we arrived here. We are having a good visit with Jean's brother and his wife, and also with two of their grandchildren who are here for a couple days. The bike has been disassembled, cleaned and packed into the Samsonite case for Tuesday's flight.

It took us 35 days of riding to travel from Milwaukee to Albuquerque. It reminded me of December, 1974 when my family (Dad, Mom, seven younger brothers and sisters) all drove non-stop in 36 hours from Milwaukee to Albuquerque for Jean's and my wedding ceremony on December 21. (I don't actually know how much of their drive was on Route 66.)

Thanks to you all for following along, posting comments and wishing us well.

We arrived in Albuquerque

We will post photos and give an account of the day later, but we wanted to say that we arrived in Albuquerque just fine.

It was quite the fun ride as the last ten miles or so were all downhill. As for tires and tubes, the rear tire tread wore out and was replaced with our last spare, which fared fine. We also had slow leaks occur in the tubes on both wheels, but replacements let us carry on just fine.

We are now with Jean's brother Gary and his wife Karen, and their younger son Daniel is coming over to join us for dinner.

More later.

Day 37 - Santa Rosa to Moriarty, New Mexico

Day 37 of our tour
November 9, 2016
82.3 miles today
(1689.6 miles, cumulative)
4285 feet of climbing
(65,496 feet of climbing, cumulative)


We were up early, packed, ready to meet John Thurston at our motel and give him most of our bags as he was going to drive the route behind us to help out. I was topping off the air pressure in both tires, and when removing the tight pump head from the front valve, the valve separated from the rest of the tube. It was time for tube change number one, but I did it in the motel room and it went smoothly.

John arrived and we all headed off. The day warmed noticeably as the sun rose. The wind was again behind us. It was great riding. We went through the town of Santa Rosa and got onto the shoulder of I-40, our home for the day. 

The scenery has changed slightly, as we were now at a higher altitude, and there are more small trees, and fewer cacti:

We quickly discovered that New Mexico truck drivers are a) very plentiful on weekday mornings, and b) see little need to change lanes when going past us. It was a very noisy day, but there were no close calls from any vehicles:

John stopped every hour or so to give us water, offer support, and just generally be the road angel that he was for us:

One of the interesting features of the day were the colourful bridges we went under. Here are some examples:

Today's road was long and straight with lots of gentle climbs and descents. Here is the view to the west, where we are going:

And when we got to that far-off speck on the horizon, we stopped and too a photo back toward the east. You can barely make out the small notch on the horizon where we had come from:

Another new feature today was seeing snow-covered mountains in the distance. These were to the north. Jean guessed they were near Santa Fe. We did not see any snow close to our route, though we did reach an elevation of over 7,0000 feet for a while.

Our high point was at a junction in the road called Clines Corners, and from there the last 20 miles was mostly a descent. The views of land below were spectacular:

The descents were fast. But, the shoulder of I-40 today was covered with debris, much of it from blown-out truck tires in the form of everything from large chunks of rubber to almost invisible bits of wire. In addition, small bits of crushed rock and other pebbles were everywhere, and I had to pay attention to dodge them:

I was not always successful, and we had both a front and rear tire go soft on us as the tubes developed slow leaks. These were a couple hours apart. I've become quite organized and quick at changing tubes.

When the descent ended we reached flat terrain near Moriarty, New Mexico, our destination for the night:

Both Google maps and the Ride With GPS map had shown us a motel on the eastern edge of the town. It was not there. Nothing but fields for miles around was visible. We stopped, checked local maps on the phones, found another motel, and headed toward it. Jean went with John in the car as she was very cold, and I rode the tandem alone as the motel was only two more miles away. After they drove off, the front tire went soft. I was able to pump it up enough to get to the motel, but it was the fourth flat of the day.

Several of our flats have been due to tiny bits of wire piercing the tire and then the tube. The resulting holes are so small that they are virtually impossible to see until the tube is submerged in water. Here is one piece of wire I pulled from the front tire after that latest soft front tire. I placed it on our tire pressure gauge to give some scale:

Jean, John and I celebrated the long day on the road at a Mexican restaurant recommended by the desk attendant at the motel. When we first drove by the restaurant, Nachos, the parking lot was empty, and, as the building was rather old, we were not sure about stopping. We spotted two police officers in a car parked in a lot across the street doing speed checks, and John drove over to ask them for a recommendation for a Mexican restaurant. "Nachos" was their suggestion, so back we went. The food was great, and when we left, it was over half full.

John presented us with some mementos from the day: a Route 66 flag, two Route 66 jacket patches, and, since it was the day after a significant one in American politics, two American flag patches. We were very thankful to John for driving along with us, and for the gifts. He headed on to Albuquerque to spend the night at Jean's brother's house, and to then continue a mini-vacation to see friends in Colorado.

Jean and I went to bed to get ready for the last day. 

We arrived safely in Moriarty, New Mexico

It was great to have John Thurston keep tabs on us and carry some of our gear today. We covered over 82 miles and lots of climbing on a sunny day with yet more tailwind. We just got back from a nice Mexican supper with John. I will tell some stories and post some photos in another post later.

Day 36 - Tucumcari to Santa Rosa, New Mexico

Day 36 of our tour
November 8, 2016
58.1 miles today
(1607.3 miles, cumulative)
2260 feet of climbing
(61,211 feet of climbing, cumulative)

We were on the road at 7:10. A few days ago when daylight savings time ended we also changed time zones,  so for us the difference was two hours. We have not adjusted yet, and were wide awake at 3:30 this morning. Fortunately we got back to sleep for a while.

We want to thank all of you who have called, texted, tweeted, emailed, Instagrammed, Pinterested or even walked up to the counter at the New Mexico State Department of Wind to ask for northeast winds for us, because that is exactly what we had, both yesterday and today! Along with warm (but not hot) sun it made for a very peaceful day of riding.

Well, mostly peaceful, as we changed our route for the last 15 miles and instead of taking back roads that were chosen by the Adventure Cycling Association as a way to get to Santa Rosa by avoiding the freeway, we took the freeway. The reason: less chipseal pavement. We had another tire wear through and blow out, so we are down to one more spare, and it is an already used tire. The chipseal has been hard on tires, while the shoulder of the freeway is very smooth.

The result was that we arrived safely, were not too tired, and we covered fewer miles than originally planned. Here below are some photos from our day. The first few show that we were riding through typical wild west areas here in eastern New Mexico:

Very long freight trains appeared more than once:

This underpass appeared old to us. The stonework was nice:

This photo shows the frontage road that we again had to ourselves much of the day, until we made our route change and moved onto I-40. The solitude and separation from fast-moving trucks was great, but the chipseal surface took a toll on our tires:

Today was the first day we've come upon cattle guards, and I think there were ten or twelve. We walked the bike across them all:

At one point the road deteriorated quickly:

It led to this underpass, which we walked through just to be safe, since it was dark enough that I could not see what was on the surface. We came upon four more such as this one, but each of those had water from one side to the other. Fortunately we did not have to go through any of those.

Here is I-40 where we spent the final hour of our day riding on the shoulder. Most of our miles were on an even better shoulder than this one. Though no trucks appear going in our direction in this shot, they did come along regularly. Again, we had no close calls at all, just loud noise:

Our long day of 75 miles tomorrow with significant hills to climb will be spent 100% on the shoulder of I-40. The original Route 66 path went north through several small towns, and then through Santa Fe, before dropping south again to Albuquerque. Many cyclists take that route, but it has scarce motels and several days of climbing, so we decided to take the freeway, which is a more direct route.

We have, however, taken up John Thurston on his offer to drive over from Amarillo and meet us in the morning to take the bulk of our panniers in his car and follow us at intervals. That will lighten our load and provide help should it be needed. After we reach our stop for the night, Moriarty, New Mexico, John will continue on for several days of visiting friends in Albuquerque and Colorado. 

Day 35 - San Jon to Tucumcari, New Mexico

Day 35 of our tour
November 7, 2016
28 miles today
(1549.2 miles, cumulative)
558 feet of climbing

(58,951 feet of climbing, cumulative)

Today we reached five weeks on this cycling tour, and yesterday we reached 1500 miles under our tires. Each day remains very satisfying, and today we did not have any miles on the shoulder of the freeway, so it was especially nice.

We arrived in Tucumcari after a pleasant morning riding in warm sun, though the morning began cooler than any previous morning: 

The scenery during the day was again inspiring:

Jean was able to get a good photo of a hawk in flight. We've enjoyed seeing many soaring birds along the quiet roads, and it's always fun to see one on a pole as we pass. Sometimes they just watch us, but usually they take flight:

We saw more water today than we usually do. The red soil, and even the red water, of this river and riverbed stood out for us:

This fence, which featured shoes attached atop each post, caught our eye. We wondered what the background to that might be.

At one of our first rest and snack breaks we took off some of our outer jackets as the sun was really warming us up nicely. We played with our shadow and tried to make an M for Madeleine and an R for Ross, our grandkids:

One of the roadside rest areas had a couple of explanatory plaques. We took a photo of this one because it included a reference to a Captain Marcy. Our son-in-law will recognize the surname. Maybe there's a connection:

The city of Tucumcari is larger than the small towns we've been through since Amarillo. Once again we started seeing more Route 66 memorabilia and buildings. We talked to one fellow at the laundromat who was on a motorcyle. He said he grew up here, graduated from Tucumcari high school in 1966, and had only been back once before. He said that when he was a teenager, I-40 did not exist, Route 66 was the main road and ran right through town, and it was always jammed with cars and people looking for gas stations, motels and restaurants.

Outside the Tucumcari Welcome Centre was a model motorcycle that blended John Deere technology with the open road. I'm not sure this model ever went into large scale production:

In the last year the town has restored the train station. It is not finished yet and is not open, but the exterior looks great:

A covered walkway leads to an interior museum that we could see through the windows. Here is the walkway, with a model of an early wagon on display:

Our only problem of the day occurred when I did not see a small tetrahedron-shaped stone in our path that had very sharp edges. It cut the front tire and tube as we went over it, and there was quite the small explosion. We are out of new tires, so we put into use a tire that suffered a small split several weeks ago. I first applied one of the tire patches I bought along the way. Here you can see the split in the rubber, and the white of the glue side of the interior patch:

Hopefully the split will not get any bigger and we'll be able to keep it at 90 lbs. I have one more salvageable used tire if this one fails. Our tires are unique, and few bike stores carry them in stock. They are a mail order item. I think we'll get to Albuquerque with what we have. (I put my hand on my heart today when I promised Jean we will start the next tour with four brand new spares, and two new mounted tires!)

We will be packing more than we usually do before bed tonight in order to get an early start for our long ride tomorrow.