(Thurs, 3/6/25; 81 miles, 2671 feet of climb)
Today I biked 80 miles. EIGHTY MILES!! And I had another amazing personal connection with yet another Lutheran Pastor, this time in New Mexico.
I woke up at 4:12 am in Kevin and Jenny‘s RV, and was biking by 5:01 AM — a new record by 2.5 hours! However, I stopped after only 4 miles, at the McDonald’s in Safford. That was the only place to eat all day, and I wanted to wait until closer to sunrise before I biked on the highway.
While eating my Big Breakfast, I started doing some research into weather forecasts for the next few days in the towns I will be in. I saw a very interesting data that gave me an idea. What if I did not stop in Duncan as planned, and rode all the way to Lordsburg, NM, today?
——
I try never to spend more than five or six hours a day in the saddle, but today it might be worth it, for several reasons. First, you need to understand the map: biking from Safford to Duncan and Lordsburg is all south east. But in Lordsburg, the route turns 90° and goes NORTH east to Silver city, New Mexico.
So here’s the data: all day today the wind will be from the west, so that means it would be partial tailwind all the way to Lordsburg. But if I woke up tomorrow in Duncan, then the wind would be a headwind getting to Lordsburg. What a pain.
Furthermore, if I ride Northeast from Lordsburg to Silver City tomorrow, I get a tailwind from the southwest! But if I waited another day until Saturday, it would be a headwind again.
To top it off, they are forecasting SNOW on Saturday for Silver City. And then Sunday and Monday are beautiful days up at that elevation.
So if I rode 80 miles today, I would have a tail wind most of the day today, a tailwind tomorrow, I could take my day off during the snow day in Silver City, and then when I ride over Emery pass, the continental divide, it would be reasonable weather on Sunday and Monday.
It’s really hard to predict the weather at 8200 feet — that pass is by far the highest point on the entire 3300-mile southern tier bike route — and it has scared me for a while. I hope the forecast for Sunday and Monday is accurate.
——
So with this idea in my head, I got on US-70 at 6:30 am, 10 minutes before sunrise. It wasn’t too bad with my flashing rear light, flashing headlamp, and my reflector vest, and a pretty decent shoulder to ride on. The only downside was there was a lot of climbing before I got to Duncan.
Actually, when I was about ten miles from Duncan, I started second-guessing my idea. l thought maybe I should stop at Duncan after all, because I was getting tired from all the climbing.
But five miles from Duncan, all of a sudden I was on a 5% grade downhill for several miles, now with the direct tailwind because the highway turned east. I actually hit over 40 mph on my bicycle! I don’t remember when I’ve ever gone that fast with a full touring load of 94 pounds. Fortunately, there was no traffic so I was able to ride in the middle of the lane, not on the bumpy shoulder.
That ride was so exhilarating that when I arrived in Duncan at the one gas station, I decided to go for it. That was the only stop of the entire day — just half an hour on a bench drinking chocolate milk, and eating some snacks from my food bag.
But leaving Duncan was another long climb. It wasn’t as steep, but it was incessant at about 1-2%. I was getting discouraged again, thinking what have I done? So then I stopped and used my phone to reserve a hotel room in Lordsburg. It was my version of “burning the ships” to make sure I wouldn’t turn back.
Not long after I did that, I came upon a sheriff car blocking the lane with flashing lights. He told me that US 70 was closed because of the high winds and dust storms!
I forgot to mention the wind, but it was howling all day. The weather app said 25 to 35 mph with 50 mph gusts. But because it was mostly cross wind and a little tail wind, I didn’t feel it too bad.
Anyway, I asked him if I could still bike to Lordsburg because I was already part way there. He had mercy and said I could go ahead even though I wasn’t supposed to.
The great thing about this is that I was all alone on the closed highway! I could ride right in the middle with no cars going either direction. At mile 60, I finally hit a plateau and had no more climbing. Then I was sailing along at 15 mph due to the tailwind.
I was getting tired though, so I took a standing break every five miles. At mile 75, with only five miles to go, all of a sudden a line of cars and semis miles long came up behind me. They must’ve just reopened the highway. In fact, I had heard that they had closed interstate 10 for several hours today too, so this may have been some of that traffic diverted.
So the last five miles I couldn’t go 15 mph, because I was relegated to the bumpy shoulder again. But I was still happy to go 8-10 mph the rest of the way.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to get to a hotel room. And this one had a hot tub! Even though I had a tailwind most of the day, this was still a lot of work — I burned about the same calories as running a full marathon.
——
Oh, I forgot to mention, — right as I was arriving into Lordsburg, there was a guy in the street with the telephoto lens taking pictures of me. We joked about him being with the New York Times, but he said he was just taking pictures for fun. He asked me to go back and bike again so we can get some better shots. Dan Belgum was yet another Lutheran pastor.
After some conversation, we determined that we had a mutual friend –– Dean Haagenson. Dean was in a quartet called HarmonyWorks that competed against my quartet in the 80s. They went on to become one of the Top 20 quartets in the world for several years. In fact, I did that quartet‘s webpage as late as 2003.
Well, it turns out that Dean was Dan’s roommate in Concordia College choir when they went on tour to Norway! I was able to pull up the old Harmonyworks webpage that is still under arneberg.com, and verified that it was the same person we were talking about. Talk about a small world.
http://arneberg.com/bbshop/harmonyworks/
——
Tomorrow is another colder and windy day, but I should have a tail wind all the way to Silver city thanks to my marathon day today. There are two glitches, however: first, I have a 3700-foot climb, one of the biggest of this trip.
Second, it is going to start raining at 1 pm. I’d really like to beat that. More important, it is going to start to SNOW at 3 pm tomorrow. I really, really want to beat the snow, and have a hotel for my day off while it’s snowing Saturday. I haven’t had a day off for 13 days, and I can feel it. I’ve been delaying it so long, but one more day is all I need.
—————————————————-
TRANSLATIONS/BACKGROUND: “CANTBIRD” = CA-AZ-NM-TX Bike Ride, my own nickname for the 1000 miles on the western half of the Southern Tier Bicycle Route, from San Diego to El Paso, using maps from ACA (Adventure Cycling Association). (I did the 1500-mile eastern half in March 2024, which I called GUMBIRD [Gulf of Mexico Bike Ride].)
—————————————————-
LINKS:
Old-fashioned BLOG if you have friends who don’t use Facebook:
“Old Scouter” Facebook page if you want to follow big adventures with more pictures and video clips (but not unrelated personal posts):
“Old Scouter” YouTube page (when I get time to edit after the trip):