Big Test Day!
Big Test Day indeed!!
Every week, Ray and I have attempted to do a very long (approx. 100 miles) ride on Saturday. This week we took it a step further.
Our goal this week was Silver City on the loaded Cutthroats. As is normally the case, these rides depend on our lives letting us do them, and in many cases our SOs supporting the idiocy! As it turns out, we had a bit of all of that this week. Ray had to make sure he made it back to Las Cruces at a decent hour (mid afternoon), and I was lucky enough that I had a supporting wife and friends as I attempted to ride the entire 140ish miles to Silver City.
The day went something like this..
We departed our homes at about 0500 and met up at the La Llorona trail by the Rio Grande river and road up Picacho/the frontage road west of Las Cruces. We stopped for a quick breakfast at the Love’ s Truck Stop. Thank god for 24 hour truck stops, Subway breakfast sandwiches, and COFFEE!
We then road the frontage road to Bowlins and stayed on the south side of I-25 past the waste disposal site, west 2 miles, then took a tunnel under I-25. This led us to a dirt road to the Border Patrol Station where we diverted north and then back south.
We hit the paved frontage road west for 5 miles or so… back over I-25 to the paved road on the south side for 8 ish miles then back under I-25 to the dirt road almost all the way to Akela Flats and the Bowlins there!
This was the second eating spot of the day, and the second stop where we got the customary strange looks of “how the hell did you get here?!”
We were then 50 miles into our ride.
Did I mention that we picked an unusual day to ride West? Seems that a front moving through gave us a TAILWIND all the way to Akela! Awesome, especiall for me as I had to continue West. The problem is that this was Ray’s turn-around point, and after a quick bite and some refueling, he turned back into 50 miles of headwind! ( yucch!) Far better man than I!!
My intent was to take dirt roads across the desert to near Cooks peak. As it turns out there is no freakin’ way to get to them, so I road the railroad siding dirt road 25 miles to Deming.
After a quick refuel in Deming, I took the NM highway towards Nut, NM 7 ish miles to county road A016 northwest towards Silver City. This was great...for almost 20 miles and then things went to shit!
A016 basically dead ends, in spite of what maps tell you. I started having to take old ranch roads, and after many miles found them locked, with me already on Private land (I guess, as there was ZERO indication anywhere that that was the case). I had to jump gates to get off of the land, only to find county roads then blocked by locked gates. Not sure how this happens (actually I do know how).
At any rate, I had to detour almost 20 miles to get around these locked gates, even though they were on county roads. Finally I detoured into Faywood, NM, hit the Mimbres highway, and rode back to the Silver City /Deming highway.
My intent was to take the Grant Co airport road, and ride into West Silver. Lola met me on the road to Silver (and my great friend Brian Robinson rode out to ride back to SC with me!). Running short on time due to the detours, I finally crawled in the car, at mile 133 of the ride, satisfied that both Ray and I had passed our Big Test Day. On to bigger and better (and back-to-back) rides in the future!
Until next time... Ride On!!
Shane and Ray
Long days in the saddle
