Mired in Mud

Hey all,

It's been a lot of miles and a lot of climbs to get to Grants, New Mexico but we did it! The three days in Silver City really helped us out a lot and we felt much better when we left 7 days ago. What lies between I20 and I40 in New Mexico is a lot more than desert and very very beautiful country. Those interstates really don't do the state justice. What lies between should not be missed. We rode mostly roads to Mimbres, NM and camped at a ranger station just before the climb up to the divide. It rained that evening, little did we know, we would rain on us a lot throughout the next couple days.

Climbing up onto the continental divide for was absolutely spectacular! The views are tremendous and you can just see forever. The loads we are hauling combined with the elevation means that sometimes we have to walk the steep parts of the climbs. The grades in this first couple days were very similar to steep north georgia fire roads and although they took a lot of effort, it was well rewarded with scenery. We will be mailing a CD full of pictures to Jamie's parents to upload over the next few days.

This first section had several challenges. Mostly the weather. I know that Jin and the guys (buddies cycling to Alaska) had their fair share of rain on their trip but they're on pavement. When dirt roads in New Mexico get the slightest drop of water, it turns into a quagmire! Mired in mud is the phrase. On top of that, the road doesn't look too muddy. It appears like an innocent dirt road until you ride over it and SINK it. Within a couple pedal strokes, mud between the tires and frame prevent any further movement. We learned this on the first day and this continued throughout the next 5. It took us one whole freakin hour to go only 300 feet at one point. The first day ended in a hail storm that we were able to miss the worst of it by pitching our tent just in time.

The next several days consisted of long steep climbs (with equally long steep and FAST decents). The mud problem continued only now it was on the climbs as well. Nothing is worst then trying to push your bike up a muddy hill while it is sinking into the ground. This really hindered our progress but we persisted. The mud is like glue and sticks to itself and everything it touches, completely like anything else I've dealt with before. Our morning consisted of getting stuck and unstuck in the cool mornings. By the afternoon, the roads dried out but the thunderstorms would come. Western US is neat in that you can see for miles and you can see the storms forming, getting trapped on ridgelines and dumping rain into the valleys. It's liek a gigantic maze, trying to beat the rain storm moving across the valley infront of you while trying not to get caught by the one behind you. When you do eventually get caught, you have to pitch the tent quickly and hunker down for a couple hours. Twenty minutes fo the rain to pass and the rest of the time for the road to dry out just enough to attempt riding again. Whenever you got stuck it took about 10-20 minutes to scrap the gluelike mud off your bike and tires so you can push another 20 feet only to get stuck again. Eventually, we took to walking/riding the grassland beside the raod whenever it was clear enough.

When the weather finally cleared up enough for us to start putting in a lot of miles, head winds kicked in to slow us down. Very gusty winds that would blow you down from cruising at 12 mph to creeping and straining at 3.5mph. Equally as fustrating as the mud. Through it all though, Jamie has been great. She's really strong and never runs out of energy to pedal. I've nicknamed her "2-seconds" after a french canadian movie about a female pro downhill moutnain biker. Her skill at handling the descents is really impressive. She's shaping up to be quite a mountain biker.

We eventually found our way out of all of this and rode into the wonderful town called Pietown. Famous for.... PIES! Yum! After 5 days of shoving our bikes through mud, we got to meet the very nice Kathy, owner of the Pie-O-Neer cafe. She allowed us to get showers for the first time and we got to eat a lot of really great pie. She then allowed us to stay at a friends house indoors with some of our new friends. Ryan, Josh, and Dennis are also riding the divide going our direction and we met them in Pietown. They are still with us here in Grants and we may continue riding together. The day after Pietown we were feeling refreshed and ready to ride. We were feeling so good and the terrain was relatively flat. And Jamie wanted to keep going, so we rode 70 miles into Grant in one (1) day. We took a day in Grant to dry out and reorganize. While in Grant, we'd like to acknowledge the wonderfull people in the local laundramat; Britney who gave Jamie a new haircut and Bernie's Custom MotorCycle Shop for assisting in rebuilding Jamie's bike cargo rack that broke inhalf 4 day's ago and has since been held together with zip ties and duck tape. We will leave Grant on Friday, starting the BIG climbs and will start going over 10,000 ft as we work are way into Colorado. We hope to be Cuba, New Mexico in 3-4 days and then will post again when we reach Abiquiu, NM, the home of Georgia O'keefe, 2-3 days later.