from Roger Peskett
June 2011
Steve Atkins asked me to tell how this ride from the New Mexico Brevet Series went, so here goes.
I met all except one of my co-riders for dinner the evening before the ride. But when will I learn about altitude and moderation in eating? My huge calzone weighed heavily in my stomach as I tried to sleep on Friday evening, and I only slept until 2.30am.
Five of us set out from Taos at 0500h on June 25th to start this 600km brevet, which promised around 22,000 feet of climbing, between altitudes of between 6,800 and 9,700 feet.
A 600km brevet is long enough usually to carry an epic quality (The wind! The heat! The climbs!), and this ride did not disappoint in those aspects. The ‘epic’ aspects often seem hidden from my awareness in the early stages of the ride: they’ll arise later typically, disillusioning me from any notion that this would be an ordinary ride, for a change.
The ride included some wonderful scenery on mainly quiet and often remote roads. High points for me included La Junta point in Wild Rivers park, where I took time out to do some “speed sightseeing”, riding my bike down the dirt road to the overlook where one can see the confluence of Red River and the Rio Grande. Cimarron Canyon was also spectacular.
Liz and John Mazzola provided attentive support from their 1962 Airstream trailer, also riding along with us in stages. Each rider arriving at the trailer was offered choice from a range of culinary treats, which would emerge in minutes from within the trailer. (In the South West, we are spoiled by our RBAs!) I never saw right inside the trailer, which enabled me to retain the fantasy that it was a version of the Tardis. Anyone who has seen any of the BBC’s Dr Who series will know this as The Doctor’s time-traveling spacecraft, which has an interior that is much larger than it appears outside. My assumption was that an extensive kitchen must exist within the Mazzola Airstream.
I regretted apparently causing confusion for Liz and John on the second day of the ride about my location, especially since they both looked after us so well and would no doubt have been there for support on Sunday if they had known where I was, and if I had known where they were! Through the whole of Sunday, which involved around 150 miles of riding, I saw nobody else from the brevet. I’d mentioned to Liz, when I had last seen her, that I might only get a short mid-ride night-time nap in Taos, which is what I did. But, as I had no means to contact them, Liz and John could not be sure if I was ahead of them or behind them. I stopped over three hours on Saturday night at the motel in Taos, riding out soon after 2am. I have never slept much on a 600km, and I like riding at night – less traffic, less heat, less wind, less water needed, the beautiful night sky, and so on.
Riding Palo Flechado Pass between Angel Fire and Taos in the dark both ways was magical, especially on the morning ride out, when I was only passed by a couple of cars. I was glad to have lights strong enough to illuminate some rough patches of road on the twisty descent towards Angel Fire. Then I could enjoy seeing the dawn break on the ride towards Mora, and see the comical-looking shorn alpaca at some of the farms in the early light.
The builders of the road from Mora to Sapello saw challenging gradients as no problem. In the middle of one particularly steep hill, I abandoned ship and found that walking my bike for the remainder of the hill, at 3.5 mph, was a more efficient option than trying to cycle it at maybe 4 mph.
I only stopped at one store on the second day. Liz asked how I managed, without support and with most stores being closed. As on Saturday, I carried a 100oz Camelbak containing water plus Elete electrolyte drops, one 24oz bottle containing Clif Shot, plus Perpetuem in paste form and more energy bars than I needed. With the equivalent of five standard water bottles, I can keep going for quite a while, especially at night when water needs are lower. (Many randonneurs seem to prefer frequent watering places to carrying more. I am happy to carry more, and then have less concern about having places to stop for water. Carrying more water significantly extends one’s range. On PBP, with no drop bags, I will no doubt carry a greater weight in food and other supplies and spares.)
My favorite New Mexico road sign reads ‘Gusty winds may exist’. This sounds to me like a statement someone might ask a philosophy class to discuss. On both days of the Sangre de Cristo 600km, gusty winds existed, for sure! On the second day, they asserted their existence to such a degree that they sometimes brought my bike almost to a stop, or seemed as if they might knock me sideways. I got off the bike a number of times to re-assess the situation, and to hope for a lull in the winds. That time, between Mora and Taos, was the low point of the ride for me, in that I seriously considered abandoning the ride. I was only about 30 miles from the finish, but I had got the ‘training’ I needed towards PBP and this was a key objective in doing this ride. Continuing on the bike seemed risky.
About to give up, I positioned myself to wait beside a pullout, from where I might hitch a ride into Taos. (This would have been my first brevet ‘DNF’, except when I was hit by a car on the Mount Lemmon 200km brevet in 2007.) From there, I saw a cyclist coming down the road. At a distance, I assumed that it was one of the brevet riders. In fact, it turned out to be a local man in his 60s, on a very ordinary bicycle with some strange kind of handlebar arrangement held together with duct tape, who stopped and chatted with me. He lived further down the canyon, and had ridden up to Holman Hill behind us. He said these were about the strongest winds he had seen there (but he was still out for a ride!). I watched him cycle carefully on down the hill and thought: If he can do it, why not me too? So I gave up the hitch-hiking idea, and got back on my bike. I caught up with this cyclist later and asked him about ‘U.S. Hill’, which I feared might be very exposed. He thought it would not be so bad as down where we were, where the wind was funnelling along a canyon. So, with renewed confidence, I continued, and indeed, U.S. Hill was manageable enough.
There was a bar/café late in the ride (before U.S. Hill) that could have supplied a nice cold drink, but I rode on past it. I regretted that decision, as I later worried about possibly running out of water on U.S. Hill, but in fact I arrived back in Taos on Sunday with still about 30oz in the Camelbak, still chilled from the ice I had added at Mora, my only re-fuelling stop of the second day. (I probably should have been drinking more. I did not feel much like eating on Sunday.)
Approaching the finish of the ride in Taos, I saw that there were ‘Bike Route’ signs where there was a shoulder. Often, the shoulder was strewn with small stones or sand, and there were uneven patches or there was a seam where re-paving had been carried out. But, because of the ‘Bike Route’ signs, drivers seemed to expect cyclists to use the shoulder. That situation did not make for a bike-friendly environment in the town. Elsewhere on the ride though, the courtesy and consideration of almost all drivers I encountered made for pleasant car-bike relations. (I often think it odd that on particular roads, one generally encounters considerate drivers. Do inconsiderate drivers not ride on these ‘considerate roads’, or do these drivers become transformed into considerate drivers whenever they do drive on them?)
I was the first rider to finish, in 33 hours 11 minutes, a time achieved more by sleeping little than by moving fast! The New Mexico Brevet Series maintains course records for their events, and this was a new course record. All five riders completed this testing brevet – a pleasing outcome.
Neck problems have become significant for me at distances above around 700km, but I hope to complete PBP again in August. The Sangre de Cristo mountains were a challenging training ground for that.
Roger.
