Monday, September 19, 2011
Ruidoso, New Mexico to Roswell, New Mexico
97 miles
2,910 ft. of climbing
Our destination today is Roswell, New Mexico - famous for the Roswell UFO Incident of 1947. As one might expect, Roswell has sort of an "alien and UFO theme" about it. For example, our hotel had a big sign with a picture of a cartoon alien sleeping in a bed, with the words "I feel at home here." There is also the Roswell UFO Museum, which we had the opportunity to visit when we arrived from our ride, but Art & I passed in favor of rest and doing our laundry.
The ride today was relatively short - only 97 miles. In the beginning, we had a great deal of climbing, as we had to backtrack 5 miles over all of those huge dips and climbs we rode yesterday, and then more of the same for 20 more miles. We rode into the little town of Capitan (Cap-e-tan), and then through Encinoso. From there, we pretty much left civilization and again began biking through dry, desolate, desert-like southwestern rolling terrain for about 60 miles or so. At about mile 50, we encountered a rather strenuous headwind that stayed with us to the end of the ride. The main thing to understand about headwinds is - you can't beat 'em or join 'em. You have to just barrel through them as best you can. So, my philosophy for riding in a headwind is simple: "Nature is in charge. You cannot change or control it. Just shift into a low gear, put your head down and pedal." In any event, when we arrived at our destination in Roswell, we were pretty tuckered out from what we all mistakenly anticipated to be one of the less demanding riding days of the tour. Despite the headwind, we arrived at our hotel early enough to get our laundry done and get to bed early. Another great day. TIP: Buy stock in Advil.
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| Art finishing one of the climbs |
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| Me - pedaling is bliss |
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