Day 14 & 15- Rest Day and a Great Weather Day

Santa Fe to Las Vega, NM
Miles: 73.0
Time: 5.07
Average: 14.2 mph
Max: NA
Total Ascent: 3,845
Est Calories: 4,822

The rest day contained a bit of time with Bob Fuller's daughter and grand-daughter (see his blog for picture proof of my involvement). Otherwise, we just tried to recover given that we will now do a 9 day stretch before our next rest day in Kansas.

Notice the NA on the Max speed above. That's because the Garmin read 57.9mph for a Max speed, and you know that ain't right, no way, no how!!! So ,I just left it blank

Coming out of Santa Fe this morning, a local lady came up on us riding a bike. She was just doing 22 miles before work. She had no water bottles. I used her as our rabbit, and rode along with her for about 10 miles. It turns out that she is 63, has a real estate business in Santa Fe, and maintains a "ChooseSantaFe" (can't remember the tail of the address), and her name is Shane. She road a 36 year old bike with static shifters. She gaves us a nice intro to what we will be seeing today, and provided some interesting conversation to start the day. After about 10 miles she turned right and headed back to her real job.

Today was just plain nice. Started a bit cool, with jackets, which we kept on for some time after the sun came out because we were climbing. Despite a net down from the other hotel, we still climbed over 3,800 by my Garmin. Despite a couple of longish hills, most of the climbing was the result of up and down rollers. We supposedly got our last taste of Interstate Highway today, just in time for me to pickup another truck tire metal shard for a slow leak that carried me to the SAG and the use of a pump instead of using up another CO2 cartridge. When I got to the hotel, and returned from dinner, I notice another flat, on the rear of course, in my hotel room. It turned out that when I had the wheel replaced some 10 days ago I had the mechanic put a more expensive rim tape on to help protect the tubes on the long ride ahead. Well, you know where this is going. The tape was all over the rim, and I had an inside puncture. Given the time (late), I had to try to reapply the tape that was on the rim, and then added some electical tape in a few spots that were a little weak. I hope it lasts for the 108 miles in desert tomorrow. You'll hear more if it doesn't.

Well, I lied again, as we hit a new high today of over 7,500 ft. of elevation, before we settled in to our overall down hill day. Maybe I should read the future cue sheets to make sure I know what's coming up, but I just deal with each day as it comes. But, I have been assured that this was the high point of the tour, so to speak.

Like most pictures, you can hardly tell whether the road goes up or down, but the picture above is a downhill that leads to the horizen with a number of ups and downs in between.

Given my experience with the blown tire, and flattened rim, I'm still extra cautious on down hills and need to run down any fellow riders (mostly Bob) once I get near the bottom, Fotunately, I still have a bit of juice to "gett'r done". See ya.................