Big NM ride, parte dos, el conclusion

But then, as at our San Ysidro stop, the precipitation stopped and the sky brightened. Yes indeed, continue to Los Alamos we would. After nearly 2 hours in the LL, we were warm and our clothes turned from wet to damp. I tried to take some pictures, but my water-logged camera couldn’t focus. I was aggravated because I just bought it a month earlier to replace the one I dropped. And yes, I was still unemployed.

The scenery in Jemez Canyon is gorgeous with steep rock walls on either side that change from red at the southern end to gray near the canyon entrance. This day, however, a couple of inches of snow highlighted the cliffs’ contours and brightened the ground. This stretch of riding was the highlight of the ride. Seeing the whitened canyon more than made up for the cold rain earlier in the day and filled me with joy.

Not far from La Cueva, it started to snow. Not much later, blizzarding began in earnest. We first stopped to put on our jackets, then stopped for pants, then for hoods, then for frozen jelly bellies, and finally stopped to ponder our fate. I took comfort in the relatively warm temperatures (for a blizzard), I doubt it was ever much below freezing, the number of daylight hours remaining, the number of cars that offered us a ride, and the relatively proximity to Los Alamos. I was surprised by the peace that filled my soul. I felt that mother nature didn’t want to kill us as she easily could, but simply was reminding us of our fragile existence.

However, I was getting the feeling that Ryan wasn’t happy and peaceful. Perhaps he was happy and just wasn’t talking much. Frankly, we had run out of most conversation topics after spending the first 9 hours of the day together. If he was upset, I can’t blame him. He was riding in a blizzard with wet clothes along an unfamiliar road. Plus, ANY other day within the last 4 months would have been more pleasant.

Eventually, we reached the Valle Caldera but couldn’t see it because of the snow and clouds. On the climb just west of it, I had the brilliant idea of letting Ryan use my booties. He had complained of cold feet which is a very bad thing to have on a very fast descent. My feet were warm and dry at the time, so I thought this would help to balance the suffering between us (also recall that he loaned me some glove liners earlier in the day). After getting the booties on his feet, I started to grind up the hill only to look back and see Ryan still standing by the side of the road. His cleats wouldn’t lock into his pedals because they were clogged with ice. Much chipping away with a screwdriver freed the ice, and we were on our way.

We eventually reached the top of the road, 9134 ft above sea level. Ryan took a few photos with his iphone (recall that my camera was water-logged). I offered to take a pic or two of him, but Ryan graciously turned me down. In order to take photos with an iphone, you have to touch the screen with bare fingers. Though my gloves were a mixture of snow, ice, and water, I didn’t want to take them off.

An easy lesson to learn about bike riding in winter in mountainous areas is that riding uphill feels much warmer than riding downhill. I believe this has something to do with the windshield factor, whereby bicycles don’t have a windshield. In fact, riding downhill in winter can be downright miserable.

The descent to Los Alamos is about 4 miles with an average gradient of about 7-8%. This ride was by far the slowest I had ever ridden the descent. First, it was very cold. Second the road was very wet, but thankfully not icy. My brakes worked poorly. On the way down, my rear brake pads wore by about 50% so that my lever bottomed out. The front brakes were compromised. Thus, pulling the levers with all the strength left in my frozen fingers barely slowed me. Yikes! My feet, once dry and warm, became wet and frozen.

At the bottom of the descent we had another powwow. Clearly, we couldn’t ride down to White Rock to meet Kyle and his brother because we were too cold. So I thought about people that I could call in LA who would be willing to take us in for a little while. Our friend and tenant Alan was at the top of the list. He was working on his dissertation at another friends’ apartment, but offered to walk back to his place to let us in. We rejoiced. This was extra kind of him because I had not told him about the ride.

At the downhill side of Omega Bridge I noted that my front tire pressure was low. I rode on without caring at all about damaging the tire or rim. Only warmth mattered. We reached Alan’s place and he welcomed us. He was a hero. He gave us tea (5th cups of the day) and wash cloths with hot water and cranked the heat.

The time was about 4pm when we got to Alan’s place in LA, about 100 miles from home. Our clothes were wet, and the only way out of LA is a 1500 ft descent. Verily, this was the end of our ride. We had ridden only half of our planned route but we were seriously proud.

The story concludes with evidence of the extreme kindness of my friends. Alan drove us to Santa Fe so that we could take the train to Abq. His sedan couldn’t fit our bikes, so Kyle, who was installing basketball hoops at the new Crossroads Church building, offered to drive our bikes on his way home to Abq the next day in his truck. Lovely wife Jill picked us up from the train station and drove us home. That anyone would offer help to knuckleheads that knowingly put themselves in a precarious situation is beyond me. I am rich in friends.

In my mind, the ride officially ended on Monday. Ryan got a ride from another friend to our apartment to help to load our stuff into the Uhaul. Jill drove us to Kyle’s apartment where our bikes awaited. I fixed the flat tire from LA, and then we rode the 3 miles back to our apartment under a clear blue sky in 70 degree temps.

We plan to try the ride again on my next visit.