Reserve, NM

7.5.2010

Today we rode about 110 miles from Lakeside, AZ and crossed over into New Mexico. The state’s motto is, I’m not kidding, “The land of enchantment”. We’re staying in a small hotel outside the town in a baller hotel room. The ride today was just as scenic as the past couple days, as we passed though mountain passes, rolling parries and along the coasts of some lakes. The beginning of the day went by crazy fast, especially after our tough climbs yesterday. We had covered about 45 miles by 10:00. The temperature hung around a cool 80 degrees for most of the day, which was nice because we were out in the saddle for pretty much the whole day.

The reason it took us so long to finish was because around mile 65 my back tire exploded. I mean this in every sense of the word. We were cruising along the edge of a mountain lake at about 22-23 miles per hour when I heard a bang. I thought somebody had run over a soda can or something, but it turned out to be my back tire blowing out. James Lawrence was behind me in the paceline and said there was white smoke spewing out in circles as my shredded tire went around. I pulled over to the side to inspect the damage, and found an inch long slit in the outside of my tire and my thorn proof tube shredded on the inside. I am absolutely baffled about what could have caused this flat. I must have hit something, but it seemed that the road was completely smooth where we were riding. We had to wait until one of the crew vans passed by so I could make the repairs. One of the other cyclists, Omar Espinosa, was racked due to mechanical bike issues, and I was able to use his tire to finish out the ride. Later when we met up with some of the other riders, Ryan Jepson said he had heard the pop too, and he was about 50 yards ahead of our group. Fortunately nobody was hurt, and I still have the tire as a souvenir.


After that incident we continued on for a while problem free until a bit of a demoralizing climb right before lodging. We were crawling uphill at about 5 miles per hour because someone in our paceline was having knee issues. Slowly but surely we made it to the top, and were welcomed with a buffet dinner at our motel.


Tomorrow we have a 130 mile ride. Oh lord. That means it’s time for bed. I lost an hour today when we crossed our first time zone.