Sunday, April 10, 2011
Duncan to Lordsburg, AZ
36 miles per google maps
The last check of weather reports before I left no longer said anything about gusts up to 40 mph, so it seemed like the worst of the winds had passed for now. Still, I left at 6am, because it tends to be calmer in the morning. I had a message from a possible couchsurfing host in Lordsburg who said bad weather was coming my way, but it looked beautiful out, and the wind was at my back, for once! Though it was 34 degrees out when I took off. Brrr.
With the wind and the relatively flat terrain, I could spin in gears so much higher than usual. This actually made today’s ride more aerobically challenging. Still, due to the temperature, I didn’t really get warm til I was nearly in Lordsburg.
I crossed the New Mexico state line about five miles out.
Since my odometer still isn’t working, it was nice to have the mile markers set back to zero. It made it very easy to keep track of how far I still had to go for the day. And as the wind stayed behind me, the mile markers continued to pass more quickly than I expected.
The mile marker signs are a mixed blessing, though, because it helps not to to dwell on the distance. The more you think about how far you’ve come or how far you have left to go, and how long it will take, the slower it seems to go. It’s hard to really look at the scenery when you’re cycling, especially when you’re moving fast, so that doesn’t really work as a distraction.
For me, it works best to stay present in the movement. Sometimes I just count to ten over and over, which is a meditation technique I learned recently. (I was glad I had a chance to go to the Zen center before I left!)
Often, I also make little lists of what I need to do the next time I stop. Lip balm, sunscreen, snack, take off my coat, put an electrolyte tablet in my water bottle, take Arnica, stretch, pee. It seems to work better if I am aware of what I need rather than making a plan. Also, now that I don’t just need to take saddle breaks so often, I find myself planning to stop at, say, the next mile marker. However, when I reach the appointed spot, more often than not I keep riding until I really feel compelled to stop. Unless I come across somewhere really excellent for leaning the bike, like a guardrail. These have been fewer and farther between lately, so I almost always stop when I come upon one.
Hallelujah! A guardrail!
So I arrived in Lordsburg around 9:30. I stopped at the Kranberry family restaurant to eat and reconnoiter. Soon I realized I was now in another time zone, so it was actually 10:30. The next camping place was 60 miles ahead in Deming. The tailwind made me feel like I could keep going, but 96 miles all together? Plus, after the last few days I didn’t trust the wind not to shift and start slowing me down. There’s a large margin of error in a 60 mile ride. It’s a lot of time in the saddle, and I certainly don’t want to be riding in the dark again.
It was hard not to take advantage of a great tailwind that’s not supposed to be there tomorrow, but I stayed put. My couchsurfing host wouldn’t be back until early evening, which made it harder not to move on. I lingered at lunch and then spent several hours hanging out at the laundromat, reviewing maps.
There’s not much in Lordsburg, but there is a park. It would have been nice to go there and do yoga, but it was still so cold and windy out. At least the laundromat was out of the wind!
Here is my original flat desert route to Las Cruces:
Lordsburg to Deming, 58 miles
Deming to Las Cruces, 52 miles
This route moves almost directly east, and is highly susceptible to gusty winds.
I started rethinking the mountains. This route would be slightly more scenic:
Lordsburg to Silver City, 50 miles
Silver City to City of Rocks State Park, 35ish miles
City of Rocks State Park to Rockhound State Park, 40 miles
Rockhound State Park to Las Cruces, 50 miles
This route includes one climbing leg and one windy leg.
Then Sadie, a cyclist friend I had spent a lot of time with in Seattle, and who had lived in Las Cruces for a while, suggested this mountainous but beautiful route:
Lordsburg to Silver City, 50 miles
Silver City to Gila Cliff Dwellings/Gila Hotsprings, not sure of the mileage, but two big climbs
Gila to maybe Kingston
Kingston to Caballo Lake State Park, 8,000+ foot pass
Caballo Lake to Las Cruces, 60ish miles
These numbers are based on campground to campground routes, basically. I also have to make sure I know whether the campgrounds have water. Many National Forest Campgrounds don’t. Then I have to know where the nearest stores are. The shorter the distances I can carry food and water the better.
Then I started checking the train schedules. Maybe I could even get on a train in Deming! Would I want to? Well, it turns out that I can’t, because I have to check my bike, and you can’t get on with checked baggage at Deming because it’s only a whistle stop. And, actually, there’s no station in Las Cruces at all. Glad I checked. Looks like whatever route I choose will have to add the day of riding from Las Cruces to El Paso, I think about 40 miles.
I also found out that the train only goes three times a week, but several routes could get me on the Saturday train. The shortest, windiest route could get me there by Thursday. Sadie’s scenic route would miss the Saturday train, probably, but I could modify it.
Dan, my couchsurfing host here, is a cyclist, so he should have some helpful insights. However, he’s also a competitive cyclist, so we likely have different ideas about bike travel.
Good there’s not to much to see here in Lordsburg, because I’m too busy trying to figure out where to go, anyway!
Dan was a great couchsurfing host! He has a huge three-bedroom home that he has rebuilt himself from a fire-damaged shell. You can see the burn marks in much of the wood floor, though it’s been refinished. He wanted to keep the history of the house. He checked out my bike shifters and explained something new to me about how they worked that got rid of irritating clicking noises. I’m sure stopping the chain from rubbing on the deraillieur is more mechanically sound as well! He fed me lots of carbs and fresh vegetables in glass pie plates rather than regular dishes. He thinks the sidewalls work better for chasing food around, especially when you eat a lot, as a bike racer in his spare time does.
Dan cooking the vegetables!
He also has a lot of great art, like this Fleur Debris!
Since he’s in to bike racing, we watched the Paris-Roubaix race he had recorded during the day. This is a one day race in France nicknamed “the hell of the north” because much of it is on cobblestone streets, on road bikes. Not only do the winners have to ride fast, they have to not fall or get caught in a mess of other riders going down. Bouncing over the cobblestones also makes mechanical issues more likely, but riders are often separated from their team support cars due to the narrow lanes they ride on. The end was really exciting, but you’ll have to look it up elsewhere, because it would take to long for me to recount.
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