Check out the Bikecapade photo album at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.
This was the day that intimidated me when planning the trip: 100 miles, lots of climbing. This was also the first day I would be riding with a full load of touring baggage (about 30 pounds). If it tired me out too much, it would make the next day, a 97-mile ride, that much more difficult.
Yet I also knew it would probably be the most beautiful day of the trip (I wrote this before Day 5 – see upcoming post!). I remembered driving U.S. 180 northwest from Silver City about 20 years ago, and I knew the scenery was captivating. For the first half of the ride, the highway skirts the Gila National Forest, then goes through the for the second half.
The day turned out as I had hoped. Difficult, but not excessive. And the landscape lived up to my memories.
From Silver City (elevation 5900), you climb steeply to leave the city, cross the continental divide (6230 feet) then it’s mostly downhill to Cliff (4700 feet), about 27 miles away. I met three more trans-country riders – one single, and a married couple on a tandem. They hoped to make it to Florida by Thanksgiving.
From Cliff, you get the only flat stretches on the highway, then it goes back to a constant series of rollers the rest of the 36 miles to Glenwood. From Glenwood north, it’s 20 miles of mostly climbing, peaking at Saliz Peak, 6436 feet. You can coast about 7 of the last 17 miles to Reserve.
You can’t afford to miss a meal or the opportunity to fill up water bottles on these highways. Cliff had one place to sit down for coffee. Glenwood had at least two cafes -- The Blue Front Café is highly recommended, by the way. Alma, five miles further north, is the last stop before heading though the mountains. The temperatures had started in the high 40s at the beginning of the ride, but probably got close to 80 by mid-afternoon.
1 comment:
Your pictures are beautiful and your quest is inspiring. Keep up the great work!
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