Biking Bad

I’ve spent the past two days biking through the great state of New Mexico. It’s been a blast riding with Corey, Rex, and Steve. Seriously, it’s easy to get lonely out there, and I certainly have been at different points of the trip. However, it’s a great change of pace to have people to joke around and share this adventure with.

Thursday’s ride was quite tough. I started out the day running on empty. I just didn’t have it. For whatever reason, my body was not wanting to bike. I pushed and pushed, yet still couldn’t get that energy. After the 134 miles the previous day, I just was exhausted. However, about 50 miles into the ride, we crossed the continental divide! That means it’s all downhill from here on out, right? Ha, I wish. It’s one of the reasons we are taking the route through New Mexico. The continental divide is a whole lot easier to pass in New Mexico than in Colorado.

Riding the country side of New Mexico is gorgeous. The vacant scenery permits you to see for miles and miles. In fact, I was singing the song ‘I can see for miles and miles’ during today’s ride. The emptiness of the terrain has a strange beauty to it. You’d think it’d get boring, but in fact it really is mesmerizing. One of my favorite parts of riding without headphones in is the fact you get to hear nature. Nature holds one of my favorite creatures as well. The meadowlark. If you’ve never heard one, you need to. The most gorgeous, beautiful, and ear pleasing bird call you’ll ever hear. It’s soothing, relaxing, and just amazing. One of my favorite sounds of the ride.

We spent the night camping at a local campground. With our tents pitched, our legs stretched from the long ride, we easily fell asleep after a generous helping of mac n cheese dinner. During the night, the wind howled, making it difficult to sleep, but nonetheless I had to arise early for the new day’s ride. We even made friends with this local pup before bed! I dare you to find another dog cuter than this guy.

By 6:10 AM I was packed, loaded, and ready to ride. The early rising part of the ride, isn’t the easiest, but I’ve realized how crucial it is to having a good day’s ride. The early start allows me to finish earlier, beat the heat, and all in all just get more miles in. The ride started with an early flat, but beyond that it was a great ride. I’ve now had 10 flats in total. Almost all of them have come while riding on the interstate. Whatever way you look at it, 10 flats over close to 3,000 miles is spectacular. I’m not gonna complain too much.

Of course, at the same time, there are other animals and beings within nature as well. Today, I encountered one that I wasn’t particularly fond of. Snakes. Two of them. The first one, Steve, who was riding alongside me, almost ran over. A four foot Bull snake (to our novice wildlife recognition skills) and then a rattle snake. We definitely saw the rattle. No, not the one that a baby plays with. The rattle snake was young, which makes it more dangerous. Adults are able to control how much venom they release, while young snakes release all the venom at once. Either way, we kept our safe difference. Here’s to hoping that I don’t have one crawl inside my tent with me. I’ll be cozy enough by myself.

We rode into Albuquerque during the ride, and I was immediately thinking of finding Walter White’s house. To my disappointment, our route through town didn’t take us by the infamous television house. Of course, while we were riding into town we were passed by 25 cops racing into the country side. We immediately thought that they were chasing down the reckless drug dealer. Steve and I had some fun with it. Hoping to see a Winnebago parked in the desert, we’d happily walk up to it in our whity tidies. I apologize if you haven’t had a chance to watch Breaking Bad on TV, go watch the series, and come back and read this paragraph again. Then you’ll understand all my jokes!

The streak has ended. I was hoping to get at least a Joe Dimaggio hitting streak of 56 days without rain. However, the streak draws to an end at one month. One month without encountering rain on the ride. I’ll take it. It rained quite a bit through the ride today. Storm after storm rolled on through. Rain. Thunder. Lightning. Wind. Mother nature was throwing it all at us. We kept on pedaling and finished with 117 miles. It definitely got chilly towards the end with the cold rain and strong wind. However it was great to finish another strong day.

Riding the interstate is different. It’s taken some getting used to, but I actually feel incredibly safe. I have a huge shoulder to ride on, and a major buffer between me and traffic. I prefer it much better than a highway with no shoulder. I get honked at quite often, some good, some bad, but I like to assume they’re all honking to cheer me on. Life’s better with a positive outlook. Debris on the interstate stinks. It causes more flats, but the simplicity of riding the interstate makes it worthwhile.

I want to give a shout out to everyone who has sent me texts, emails, or phone calls of encouragement over the trip. It means the world, and LITERALLY makes my day. It makes me smile, laugh, and makes the physical and mental toughness of biking all day a little bit better. So here’s a big Hi5 and thank you to all of you! Keep those words of encouragement coming! It means so, so much.

Thanks for following along!

Matt