Day 14 (Wed, 9 Apr)

I’m back riding (finally…)! 

I rode from Albuquerque, NM to La Cueva, NM today.  A mountain ride heading generally north out of the Rio Grande River valley.  The ride was 73 miles with 3,500 ft of climbing starting at an elevation of about 5,000 ft and ending at about 8,000 ft.

Weather:  The weather was nice.  It was mostly sunny throughout the day with temps in the 40s in the morning climbing to about 70in the afternoon.  There was a mild 10 mph wind for much of the day that liked to rotate between head and tail winds during the day.

The Roads: I took Hwy 47 to get thru Albuquerque, then onto Hwy 528, Hwy 550 and finally Hwy 4 up the mountain.

Flat tire #2 (pinched/cut rear tube when I hit a rock).

Great riding day and the climbing on day 1 back on the bike definitely left my legs spent by the time I reached the summit…

On to the pictures!

Rio Grande

White sand dunes on the left side plateau.

Lots of red rock in this area!

I like everything about that sign...

Old Rusty Stuff.

Neat local, pueblo style church.

And more red rock.

Jemez is the main town in the area and many mountains in the region also use the name.

Yep, more red rock.

Heading towards those bluffs.

And the climb begins!

Awesome scenery and rock formations carved out by the small stream in the valley.

Still going up, and

more red rock

Cool rock formation (and good excuse to stop during the climb!)

Check out the explanation on the sign.

and then this really interesting natural dam.  That's a new one - never seen before.

Alright, starting to see pine trees again

I kept thinking during this ride that I'm going to need to get myself to the top of those bluffs - ughhh.

Amazing blue sky and high enough during the climb that you can definitively hear commercial jets going over at 30k ft - these 2 looked like they were in formation.

Getting close to the top - I hope!

Yep, there.

And made it to La Cueva (try to find that on your map!)