Well, it is Wednesday and I am back to my regular routine. Work has been good and bad. Good because I’ve been so busy and productive after 10 days off. Bad because I miss the wide open spaces of the desert and mountains I grew accustomed to seeing everyday. I just re-assembeled my bike. It took about 30 minutes including installing a new Brooks B – 17 saddle. I rode it on the street at the end of my driveway for a minute or two and it felt great to be on two wheels again. It feels good to sleep in my own bed, too. And the home cooking… well, Holly has been unbelievable with the fresh fruits and vegetables I missed so much out West. We had lots of Mexican food and hamburgers during our ride, but not much in the way of green veggies and fresh fruit. Since returning home I’ve had Kale, Swiss Chard, spinach, tomatoes, acorn squash, lentils and I see there are fresh yellow and red beets on the menu tonight. Why can’t we get Holly to come and prepare all our food for us on the road? Brian needs his spinach! Let’s start a petition to hire her as the bike ride chef!!
We spent the rest day in El Paso driving to Fort Hancock, the next town we will ride to on L3. We used Google Bike Maps for directions but it was a road different from Adventure Cycling Route Map Section 3. West Texas seems more desolate than anything we have encountered yet. (We will start our ride about 7 miles from downtown El Paso as that is the extra distance we needed to ride to get to the Courtyard Marriott near the El Paso airport. The streets in El Paso don’t make much accommodation for bicyclists. It will be safer that way.) After Fort Hancock, we visited The Border Patrol Museum. What a waste of time…enough said. Wasn’t my idea!
I will try to blog about our summer rides just because I don’t get any other chance to write.

Mark

I know Tim and Brian will describe our journey today so I won’t bore with more of the same. Enjoy the pictures I took today and before you know it, we will be writing again about the next chapter of the Brothers Bike ride. Thanks to all who faithfully read our posts every day. The fact that you want to hear what we do and see is a big part of the enjoyment of these rides. Thanks again.

Mark

Wednesday March 6, 2013, 89 miles (143 km) – Total so far: 412 miles (664 km)
Hillsboro, NM to Las Cruces, NM

We are all getting tired. We have been working hard and sleeping poorly at these high elevations, and it is catching up with us. A rest day just did not fit in with the distance we needed to cover this year. The Black Range Lodge provided a breakfast of great coffee, French Toast on homemade bread, yogurt and scrambled eggs with peppers, onions, tomatoes and cheese, but since it was freshly prepared, we had to wait and did not get going until 8:30. Normally we are riding by 7:15 at the latest. Hillsboro, population 24, is remote. An old mining town, it once was home to 7,000. The Silver Panic of 1893 lowered the price of silver too much to make mining by individuals worthwhile and the exodus began. There are many ghost towns in the mountains around here. A few rugged individuals still prospect and mine the hillsides around the town. Apparently, a gold nugget can be worth thousands of dollars. Our route took us east to The Caballo Reservoir on the Rio Grande. We then turned south into the Mesilla Valley and followed the river Southeast for the rest of the day. We were parallel to I-25 and could see the interstate some of the time. We stopped for lunch in Hatch, chile capital of the world. We had the good luck to meet 6 loaded touring bicyclists going north. They warned about thorns and flat tires. Sure enough, we had to carefully remove many goat head thorns (picture to follow) after our next snack break. Las Cruces (city of crosses) is home to New Mexico State University. The big employers are White Sands Test Facility and White Sands Missile Range. The majestic Organ mountains dominate the eastern horizon. We finally arrived at our motel at 5:45. The sun was making it hard to see, and rush hour is never a good time to be on a bike. Tim’s daughter Mary greeted as we dismounted with her two children, Nala and Sabouma. She drove from Albuquerque. We ate dinner in Mesilla, an old Mexican town now apart of Las Cruces, at La Posta. It was a stop on the Butterfield Stagecoach line in the 19th Century.

We have been very apprehensive about climbing over the mountains at 8259 feet at Emory Pass ever since we mapped this ride last summer. It’s been said before that worry is a waste of imagination. How true it is because this section was beyond description. Yes, it is hard to do more than 4,000 feet of climbing, all of it at 5,000 feet or higher. I don’t have enough synonyms for beautiful and spectacular to describe the natural beauty in this part of New Mexico so I will post the pictures we took and hope you can appreciate what we saw. The smell of the pine forest and the lack of machine noise (except a slowly passing car once in a while) made this a ride I would do again if I could.

Today I learned why Laura is so afraid of wind. We had 30 mph crosswinds during some long descents. I was nearly knocked me off my bike multiple times. I was more stressed riding the last leg of 10 miles into Silver City than I was in the Queen Creek Tunnel.

Tim started us off by singing “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas and Papas. Much better. I pulled it up on my iTunes and played on our first break.

We knew there would be some climbing today. For the first portion out of Lordsburg, we had a moderate steady incline. No downhill portions at all but that was alright because it wasn’t too steep. We hit the Continental Divide (6348 feet) about 25 miles from the start. We thought it would be a nice easy ride the rest of the way because Silver City is at an elevation of about 5900 feet. But unfortunately, the wind picked up and we had many steep drops and climbs the rest of the way.

Silver City is bigger than I imagined but nicer, too. The historic section has a hip vibe and some newer restaurants and shops. The main drag has big store like Albertson’s and Wal-Mart, etc. Western New Mexico University is here. It must help drive the local economy.

I took lots of pictures and even some videos today.

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Our ride started out under a pretty blue sky with Tim singing “Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day,” and I couldn’t get that darn tune out of my head for the rest of the day. I don’t know any other words to it, nor do I know the other melody line that it must contain. Enough about that. So I was stuck with that little ear worm all day. I did find 8 pennies along the way. In the middle of nowhere. See a penny, pick it up. It’s the first loose change I’ve found. I also saw 2 foxes crossing the desert highway, a couple of hawks in flight and some black vultures. No, they were not circling above me. (We see mostly Turkey Vultures in Pennsylvania.)

Mt. Graham again dominated our southern vista for many miles beyond Safford. I would like to go to the top of it someday. There is a lake near the top and the views from up there must be incredible. Irrigated fields of hay on both sides of the road prevailed until we climbed out of the Gila Valley. Dry desert scenery with distant mountain ranges to our north and south continued until a few miles west of Duncan, AZ, which is 40 miles from Safford. Then we began to see more grass and trees with prickly pear cactus interspersed. My camera batteries died and my cell phone was just about dead so I didn’t get as many picture as I would have liked.

Today we also got chased by some more dogs. About the same story as yesterday. They just don’t give it their all and it’s hardly worth getting excited about. All the big, mean dogs are tied up or uninterested in bicyclists. Beth got the big dog scare today. She was chased back into “Midnight Rider” by a Doberman. You go girl!

I am sure Tim and Brian will rave to you readers about today’s tailwind. What a joy it was to ride the final 37 miles after lunch with a 20 mph tailwind. We were going up a small incline for all 37 miles and we were flying. The roads in Arizona are very well paved. Once in New Mexico, the asphalt was noticeably rougher for the first 15 miles. But then we came upon a newly paved, smooth as glass surface all the way into Lordsburg. Phenomenal! It had to be the easiest 76 mile ride I have ever done.

There is no better feeling for a bike rider doing a tour than finding your accommodations for the night after a long day’s ride. It feels even better when you stumble into the motel parking lot a few miles sooner than what you were calculating. Google maps and bike odometers are never synced precisely. Playing number games with the remaining mileage occupied my bored mind until the mile markers on the side of the road suddenly added a bunch of extra miles. After that I just couldn’t be sure exactly how many miles remained. The Adventure Cycling maps showed the town of Thatcher to be about 4 miles west of Safford. In fact, though, the two towns just run together so I didn’t even realize I was in Safford when Tim pulled into the Best Western Desert Inn parking lot. I thought he might have the wrong motel and that we would have to keep pedaling to get to the right one. What a great feeling when your room and a hot shower are minutes away.

Today’s ride actually lost elevation. Safford is maybe 500 feet below Globe. But the 76 miles were long ones for some reason. We had a slight headwind all day. Our waitress at breakfast this morning warned us about the wind around Safford and I guess she was right. We even saw a small dust storm. Brian was too slow processing my urging to take a quick video before we went around it. He had a very hard day today so we’ ll cut him some slack. He had a little case of Montezuma’s revenge from too many enchiladas last night. Or maybe it was that large strawberry margarita. He was feeling poorly all day. I gave him Motrin and Tylenol and he eventually got his second wind and felt better. Tim and I asked him during one of our many brief rest stops if he wanted to quit today so he could rest up and not get so weak that the rest of the trip was in jeopardy. But he said he could make and he did.

Another thing that a long distance bike rider loves is not being lost. Yesterday was one long ride on Rt. 60 East. No turns at all. Didn’t need any directions. That makes riding so much easier. (Rt. 60 East is the same road we took last year into Salome, Wickenburg and Phoenix.) Today’s ride started on Rt.60 until 1 mile east of Globe where it runs right into Rt.70 East. Nice and simple. (One of the worst days last year was the day we got lost climbing out of Pine Valley.)

Today we rode mostly through San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. We were warned about loose dogs chasing bicyclists and sure enough, a pack saw us a gave chase. The leader was a terrier mix and he gave up much too quickly. I was ready with my water bottle and I had my voice commands to yell but I didn’t need either. Oh well, now we can say we were attacked but we sprinted away so fast they gave up.

No motorcycles today. Fewer cars and trucks but more than I expected for a Saturday. Unbelievable amount of road litter. You just can’t imagine how much trash is tossed on the side of the roads out here. Heard one rooster. Smelled some good wood smoke from outside fires. Talked to a young farmer and his wife and family. He was from California and moved here to start his own green house vegetable farm. Sells to Costco and WalMart. Loves it out here.

Today was a day of climbing, traffic, noise, car exhaust and breathtaking beauty. We rode through the Queen Creek Tunnel, which we have been dreading. But it wasn’t bad at all even though traffic was heavy and it was around 1PM on a Friday. (Sunday is the best day to attempt that tunnel on a bike.)

Again today we were on moderately congested roads for the most part. Rt. 60 is a 4 lane divided highway for about 20 or so miles out of Apache Junction. Wide shoulders except for stretches with guard rails that narrow toward the rumble strip. But a very smooth surface for all 55 miles. Temperatures in the 50’s to start and upper 60’s by later in the day. There was snow on the north facing mountainsides at the higher elevations. I think we saw a sign indicating 4880 as our high point. Lots of cholla, prickly pear and saguaro cactus followed by pine forest as we got higher in the mountains.

I wanted to stop and take pictures almost every mile. It was just a day for Kodak moments. Here’s the best examples.

Tomorrow is a longer ride of 76 miles to Safford, AZ. It will be our last full day ride in this great state. Sunday we will end somewhere inside New Mexico.

We made it to Apache Junction, but it was a long day. I awoke at 3:30 a.m. in order to pick up Brian and get to the airport in time for our 6:50 a.m. flight to Phoenix. The flight was fine, and we actually arrived ahead of schedule and had to wait for a gate in order to deplane. Our bags were the first ones off the conveyor belt—I hope we don’t have to pay karma back and wait forever when we get back to Philadelphia. Beth picked us up, and we were promptly back at the Marriott in Tempe (where we ended our trip last year) by 10:30 AM. I had my Bike Friday assembled and I was ready to ride in no time, but Brian had lots of trouble with his cable couplers, and he had to drop the bike off at a bike shop in Tempe. We ate a nice lunch and were riding by 2:00 p.m. Today’s ride was mostly in congested, suburban-type neighborhoods with lots of traffic stops and school dismissals (oof), but we arrived at the Best Western in Apache Junction by 4:30. Tomorrow will be a much harder ride to Globe—we will climb about 4000 feet over 55 miles.