Albuquerque, NM to Santa Fe, NM -68 miles

Me with my buddy Jon from Stoke on Trent (UK) before he left to return to bloody England.

Craig preparing for his daily GQ shot. He paid me not to post the "after the ride" pic.

We have to climb out of these bad boys.

Greg taking my pic with reversed camera.




NO, NO, NO.....Stop it! My sentiments exactly.

A thing of beauty. Scenes like this make everything worthwhile.

No calorie counting here. yuk yuk yuk!

Today was definitely a day for climbing. We left Albuquerque (home of the baseball team the Isotopes) and shortly began climbing. Albuquerque is around 5300 ft above sea level. We climbed to over 7200 feet skirting Sandia Peak. The weather was perfect and the scenery beautiful. Beautiful scenery and climbing usually go hand in hand. Unfortunately, after climbing to 7200 feet, we made a quick descent to around 6000 feet into the town (town is used very loosely here) of Madrid. We had our morning coffee in Madrid at the 45 mile point.

Yesterday, after our ride we had to go on a 2.5 mile walking excursion to track down a coffee shop and get our afternoon coffee fix. Fortunately Harold is wired (both from coffee and electronically) with his I phone and we were able to eventually find the coffee shop. Today the coffee was excellent although after making fun of Doc's fufu girly drink selection, I proceeded to also order a fufu drink for myself. I loved listening to the overage hippies talking about getting their certificates for medical marijuana. LOL And in Madrid they charged .25 cents to refill my water bottle. I was amused by that.

Madrid is also famous from the move "Wild Hogs" with John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and of course Marisa Tomei. It was being filmed there when I passed through on my cross country tour of 2006. The scenery is exactly as in the movie with the highway appropriately named the Turquioise Byway. Maggies was constructed specifically as part of the movie set. It now appears to be another tourist trap. I think Madrid is a biker town with an artist problem.

After leaving Madrid (pronounce MAD DRID, not like the city in Spain). We proceeded to climb, climb, climb to Santa Fe. By this time it was getting a little warm and the temperature was approaching 85 degrees. All in all a tough day for climbing and the legs are a little sore. However, I averaged 15 mph even with over 5000 feet of climbing for the day so I was very happy with my performance. The sooner one can get to the hotel then the sooner one can begin to recover. On the way into Santa Fe, we passed a high security penitentary. For those snoozing at the wheel, the sign advised not to pick up hitchhikers particularly those in orange or pin striped jump suits. Hmmm you think so.

Saturday is a rest day and I will use that to get caught up with the laundry, replace my worn rear tire and explore the sights of old Santa Fe. A much needed deep tissue massage is also in order. Most non bikers never bike enough to wear out a tire. Depending on the tire choice about 1200-1500 miles is all that one is good for. Most cyclists go too far on a worn tire and Murphy's Law dictates that it will rupture or blow at the worst possible time.

A group of us went to Coyote Cafe last evening for dinner. It was Daryl's last day on tour with us. We weren't exactly appropriately dressed, but given that some of the older women appeared to be "poured" into their outfits, I guess we were ok.

On Sunday we take off for the other Las Vegas, New Mexico that is. Oh and on blogs it is difficult to match pictures and captions, so today match up whatever caption with whatever picture you think it applies to. Until then.

Until then....

Cheerio as my English friends would say.

Ty