Day 10 – Tuesday 03rd May 2011 – Las Vegas NM (not Nevada!) – Tucumcari NM

With the last of the riders arriving at the hotel around 7pm last night after a long, cold and hilly day, today was delayed with forecast tailwinds and a shorter distance in the mix. As such, we could sleep in but a loud buzzing noise at around 5:45am assured no one slept in. It stopped before we could decide if it was supposed to be the fire alarm or if someone just had an extremely loud alarm!

Opening the curtains revealed freshly snow coated mountains but a cloudless sky and no wind.

After a leisurely hotel breakfast consisting of cereal, yoghurt, donuts, muffins, eggs, sausages along with waffles, gravy & biscuits, bagels, toast etc if desired, route maps were given out at 7:45am which literally had 4 turns all day, including one out of the hotel and one into the next hotel. Navigation should not be a problem! 

With freezing temperatures forecast early, luggage load was re-scheduled to 8:15am. However, it was warmer than this and considerably warmer than a typical Hawkes Bay frost. As such, we left the hotel just after 8am mid pack with an air temperature of 6°C. The ground dipped initially and then rose until just prior to the 20 mile mark but it was gentle, gradual climbing and a light wind arrived to push us along. There was snow on the road side from yesterday’s storm but it was too hard to make into a quick snowman.

With only gentle climbing and a favourable wind, we cut out the 48 miles to the first sag in around two and half hours. This leg included a 1,000ft mountain descent with cattle grates in the road and we also passed 1,000 miles to date on this crossing of the country.

One rider stopped to mail a letter at a post office at Variadero which is a tiny building in the middle of nowhere. This action probably ensured it has a new record this year for letters posted at it!

Carrying on, the scenery was all big wide open spaces. We reached lunch at the 76 mile mark after climbing what had been labelled “the wall” – a 10% gradient climb of 0.7 miles (about 1.1km). The 25 tooth chain ring enabled me to spin comfortably up this. The America by Bike (ABB) staff had painted “encouraging” words up the climb including “What the shift?” right at the bottom.

After lunch, it was a largely easy ride for a further 32 odd miles to complete the day’s ride which saw total vertical climbing of 3,530ft but we dropped around 2,500ft in absolute height for the day from 6,500ft to 4,000ft. This means we still have some height in the bank for future downhills.

Arriving at 2:32pm, it was a pleasant 30°C and the hotel had put on fruit juice and snacks for us which were gratefully received.

Route maps for tomorrow were given out at 5pm with predictions of another easy day with tail winds.

We cross into Texas and the clocks go forward another hour so the schedule of events for tomorrow, including a slide show of photos taken by the ABB staff to date at 2pm followed by a 3pm drive chain cleaning training session and rap at 4:30pm, seem wildly optimistic given it is a 95 mile ride and it is another sleep in morning with luggage load scheduled for 8am with early temperatures again predicted to be freezing. Time will tell.

For dinner, we went to the Steak House next to the hotel for steak and shrimps. The steaks were much tougher than those at the Steak Out in Havelock North.

Numbers for the day:

Departure time: 8:08am
Distance: 110.0 miles (177.0km)
Riding time: 5hrs 39m
Average speed: 19.5mph (31.3km/h)
Maximum speed: 40.0mph (64.0km/h)
Vertical climbing: 3,530ft (1,076m)
Temperature range: 18 (inside) – 6-30°C
Arrival time: 2:32pm
Weekly (Monday – Sunday mileage) to date: 245.4 miles (394.8km)
Total kilometres ridden to date / approximate kilometres to go: 1,749km / 3,813km
Rolling last seven days total kilometres ridden including today: 1,173km