We had breakfast at the hotel which included cereals, pastries, waffles, fruit, yoghurt, biscuits & gravy etc just after 6am. It was a pleasant 21°C inside and a quick walk outside felt cold but not quite the predicted 32°F i.e. 0°C i.e. freezing. With the sun rising into another clear blue sky but the temperature only predicted to hit a maximum of around 61°F (16°C) for the day, I put on my winter riding gear.
As the hotel we stayed at had three floors but only one lift, it struggled to get all the riders, their bikes and luggage down to the ground floor in quick time. I ended up using the stairs to the third floor and the effort in loading the luggage and getting my bike outside warmed me up.
We left the hotel just before 7am and almost immediately began a gentle climb with virtually no wind. At the 21.9 mile mark we reached the 7,275ft summit of the continental divide. This was really a non-event as we started the day at around 6,600ft and there was no real climb or decent – unlike on the Cross Country Tour which climbed to over 10,000ft in the Rockies. Some of the road surface was appalling and Patrick and I almost sunk without trace into a pile of sand on one interstate entry ramp crossing.
Along the way, we again saw many trains. Patrick estimated one train had 140 carriages and each one was double stacked with 40ft containers. To give an idea of the train’s length, we were riding at around 20mph while the train was travelling in the opposite direction at around 40mph and it took over a mile for the whole train to pass us. This was a typical sized train of the many trains we saw moving back and forth on the twin tracked lines. Most had four to six engines in them.
After the 2nd sag stop at 64 miles, we passed through areas of lava. Other than that, the scenery was non-descript. The temperature only rose slowly to about 10°C at 10am before hitting 28°C around 2:30pm before starting to fall again. The little wind there was retained a solid chill factor all day.
There had been much talk of a “10 mile hill” which was just before the 120 mile mark. This shows on the ride profile as a vertical line. In reality, the climb is about 2 or 3 miles long and about 6-7% maximum gradient. It is supposedly called 10 mile hill because it can be seen from 10 miles away. From the top of this rise, there is a long, straight decent into the outskirts of Albuquerque. However, with side roads, an unknown road surface and random crossing traffic, it was not safe to crank the speed up over about 60km/h.
Once into town, there were many twists and turns to reach the hotel and a number of other riders accrued some bonus miles. There are not many food places close to the hotel so we went to the first one we walked to which was another Mexican restaurant which had good service and nice food with extra spicy sauce if you wanted it.
Route details for Monday were given out at 7pm as tomorrow is a rest day. Monday is a long day with over 7,000ft of climbing and to add to the challenge, the current forecast is for another 0°C opening with the maximum unlikely to be much more than 0°C and a 40% chance of snow and rain. That could be a challenge!
Numbers for the day:
Departure time: 6:55am Distance: 136.8 miles (220.1km)
Riding time: 7hrs 15m
Average speed: 18.9mph (30.4km/h)
Maximum speed: 43.0mph (69.2km/h)
Vertical climbing: 2,890ft (881m)
Temperature range: 21 (inside)–0–28-23°C
Arrival time: 3:17pm
Weekly (Monday – Sunday mileage) to date: 729.3 miles (1,173.4km)
Total kilometres ridden to date / approximate kilometres to go: 1,354km / 4,208km
Rolling last seven days total kilometres ridden including today: 1,354km
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