Day 10

The road to Tucumcari is one of my favorite rides of all time.  The terrain from Las Vegas to Tucumcari is absolutely beautiful and overall it drops from 6800 feet to almost 4000 feet near ride's end.  There are many places where you can see the road for miles and miles...it just seems to go off into nowhere.  Beauty aside, this morning I was concerned with the weather.  The dew point temperature was only 2 degrees below the actual temperature so we were in danger of being swallowed by fog as we ascended out of town.  I drove out of town for ten miles before I could find a car that was coming the other way to give me a report.  As it turned out, we were OK and hoped to get in before forecasted severe weather set in near our destination.  As it turned out, there were tornadoes that crossed our route after we'd gone through...our only obstacle was a brisk headwind on the final miles into town.

The county in which Las Vegas resides, has everything from 11,800 foot peaks to broad, flat plains to the east that are in the neighborhood of 4000 feet.  The ride starts out with a gentle climb for probably a 1000 feet to the top of the Las Vegas Plateau where the terrain rolls and the roads are smooth.  If the beauty of the high rangeland isn't enough, the road drops into a canyon at about 33 miles where the descent opens up spectacular views of the valley below and the surrounding mesas.  Then it's a mix of flat to large gentle rollers all the way to Tucumcari.  There was one steep 0.7 mile climb at mile 67 (below right) that got everyone's attention but the rest of the climbing was mostly graded under 5%.  The riders enjoyed the views from the top of the mesa but the scenery in the valley was beautiful too. 

I spent most of the day bouncing from the back of the group to the front while taking over 200 photos of the scenery.  By the time I got to the lunch SAG, the riders were commenting on how great the day was and how I was right about it being beautiful out here.  Even the headwind couldn't deter our riders from enjoying the scenery.

As we neared Tucumcari we passed another historical area where Kit Carson had an influence.  As we were leaving Los Angeles, we saw several markers stating Kit Carson had done something in that area...mostly dealing with the Indians.  Today we passed the site where Ft Bascom was built to protect the area from Comanche Indians in 1864.  Kit led a campaign against the Indians in this area in 1868 from that fort.  The fort also served as protection from New Mexicans who were trading illegally with the Comanche.  The fort stood from the early 1860s until it was abandoned in 1870.  I tried to imagine living in a fort in this territory...tough life to say the least.

This is the earliest everyone has gotten in so far...now maybe people will have time to recover for tomorrow.  If we have favorable conditions for the next couple days, we should be able to start feeling good.  We've got a couple relatively easy days coming up so hopefully we can put them to good use.  Personally, I'm happy to finally get a relatively easy day and have time to get some things done before it gets dark.  I have to ride tomorrow because I don't have anything but cycling clothes to wear...oh darn.  Hope to see you then.