"People who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycles as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles."
Flann O’Brien Gallup, New Mexico to Springerville, Arizona. 123 miles. 4470 feet climbing. OK, OK, I've changed my mind about riding in New Mexico. We rode south from Gallup this morning, mostly climbing in cool air. The countryside south of Gallup is radically different than the countryside we came through yesterday from the north. It's rolling, the roads meander, and the hills (although still dry looking) are covered in pine. The road is smooth with a wide shoulder. The farms and houses are much more prosperous than further north. The riding was fabulous. The wind was light and we got some altitude gain over with early. All of the ride was above 6000 feet. The four of us left last and for the first hour we brought up the rear. But sometime after the first sag we picked up the pace and started to reel some other riders in. As soon as we would catch one group, there was another group just visible down the road. After 14 days of riding it feels comfortable to take long pulls at the front. Speaking of wide shoulders, they haven't been much of an advantage in New Mexico. I've never seen anywhere with as much broken glass on and by the road as we've seen in this state. Wherever we stop for the sags or just a quick drop off of excess fluid, there are both broken and intact beer bottles by the side of the road. It seems New Mexicans don't need much in the way of special ambience or surroundings to have a party. Just stop the car and have a few pints by the side of the road. Or maybe they're having the parties in the car and they just stop to get rid of the evidence. It makes us a little schizophrenic. Do we ride the shoulder and suffer the glass, or ride the road and beware the party types? Indeed, yesterday we were constantly passing riders stopped fixing flats. Fortunately our foursome was spared the trouble. But we were very careful. So careful in fact, that Dick saw glass in the quartz crystals in the pavement, and even in the irridescent wings of moths that had been killed by cars the night before. Ah yes, the notorious tire-slashing razor-winged moth. After 50 miles we pull into the second sag, at the Arizona border. It's immediately obvious that Arizona is very different than New Mexico. There's no glass on the shoulder. The fact is, there's no shoulder at all. The second distressing fact is that the Arizona state sign has been strafed with bullets. There are some pretty nasty looking holes. Do they just target signs, or are bike riders fair game? And third, Arizona seems to place expansion joints (i.e. large cracks) at every 30 feet of road. Rough is too mild a word. Talk turns to the type of bike frame that best absorbs the bumps. Titanium? Carbon? Aluminum? Steel? Everyone covets the material of someone else's bike. Surely their butt doesn't feel as bad as mine over these cracks. I find this talk of different bikes rather interesting. With forty or fifty riders on a tour such as this, there's a wide variety of exclusive and esoteric bikes. There are rare makes, sophisticated components, custom paint jobs, and high tech accessories. One rider has a GPS system with a visual read-out that shows him a map of the road, and an elevation profile of the road ahead. It's been interesting also to match the different riders, with different appearances and riding styles, to their bikes. It reminds me of the remark that pet owners often eventually look like their pets. So we tough out the uncompromising road into Springerville. The last 20 miles seem long with a slight uphill into the wind, and the temperature rising. But we finally arrive, with a couple of other riders in tow. Three of us try the hotel hot tub while Ann has her massage. Then a Mexican cantina for dinner. On the way back to the hotel we stop at a pharmacy which puts the one in Jackson, Wyoming to shame. Mounted above the pharmacy window were heads of American buffalo, elk, oryx, water buffalo, wart hog, hyena, sable, bear, moose, antelope, and bighorn sheep. There were a dozen others I can't remember. I was a little shocked; it seemed somewhat incongruous that a pharmacy had such a display on the wall. Then again, beside the pharmacy window was a rack of a hundred or so guns on sale. An interesting combination: guns, drugs and animal heads. Don Friedlander game head pharmacy ------ To unsubscribe, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Club Office: [EMAIL PROTECTED], (613) 230-1064 Web/mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyberus.ca/~obcweb Newsletter: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cyberus.ca/~obcweb/Newsletter ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aVxiDo.a2i8p1 Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
