Boats and Planes but No Trains!

Burt Bacharach and Hal David would never have written the hit song that was performed by them, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas and Dionne Warwick if they were on our ride today. About 75 miles into the ride Thom asked what was different about today's ride. I knew we had seen plenty of  bungee cords. I also knew we had a flat at the start from a wire we missed yesterday installing the tire liners, So I gave up. Thom announced that we hadn't seen a train. This was the first day since Bakersfield, our 2nd day that we hadn't seen a train.  We did see planes occasionally flying overhead and we saw some boats on trailers. I just don't think the song would have been the same without trains.

Today was a long day. We got on our bikes at 8:00 AM after we fixed the flat. We had quite an audience besides Claudia and Dan and Pat Newman where our bikes we stored, our son and his dog showed up and some of Dan and Pat's friends showed up to see us off and ride through Albuquerque.

It was fun riding and talking with others. There was quite a headwind that was accentuated by the funnel effect of the canyon we were riding up to get out of ABQ. Thom and I were on our own after 10 miles,  We took our first break after about 16 miles which had taken us about 2 hours. After 25 miles the winds settled down to just an annoying headwind and not the gusts that were holding us back. However what Google Maps called "mostly flat" was far from it. 

At our lunch break in Moriarty, we had an interested conversation with a trucker who had started his run very near to where we had started our adventure in California. At another rest stop we had a conversation with a man who had seen us earlier in the day. We left the rest stop before him and a few miles down the road he passed us and gave us a big wave. Those are some of the more enjoyable moments of the trip. By the way, it is always better to wave than honk your horn if you want to say hi to a cyclist.

We ended our ride 25 miles short of our aspirational goal of Santa Rosa. We had started at 8:00 AM and finished at 6:45 PM. Claudia came and picked us up and drove us to our hotel in Santa Rosa. This means that tomorrow Claudia will drive us back to where we stopped. She is a lifesaver.  In all we did 95 miles and climbed over 4,000 feet. Most of the ride was at 6,000 feet above sea level and some was over 7,000 feet above sea level. 

Here is the ride on Strava:

Progress

We are almost one third of the way done with the trip in terms of miles and over forty percent done with the climbing. The big climbing days of the trip are over except for the last two days. we will also be descending to a lower altitude over the next two weeks of riding. Here is the chart that most people don't care about except for me.

Tomorrow

If everything is "willin" we hope to make it to Logan, New Mexico. There is a hint about tomorrow's post in that last sentence,