Category: Luna Lakes Tour

Early ice coffee and snacks. We decided to forego a proper breakfast in order to dive into this ride. I’m so looking forward to it. Even after doing this ride, what, five time now, this third day is really special. It’s one long-ass climb out of Reserve, and in print I won’t grind through each mile of it. But Jack and I sure did (grind, that is).  It’s 2,300 feet in 14 miles, with the last 1,500 feet in about 5.5 miles (5% grade). I know, real alpine cyclists would sneeze at that, but for us mortals, on two-thirds loaded

Morning breakfast at the Largo Cafe here in Quemado. Just like in July, the lady manger there recognized me again. Says she remembers all faces. Winds today are forecast to pick up in the afternoon mostly from the west, so I’m a little concerned about the end of today’s ride. We shall see. Otherwise, the route today is a low grade 25 mile uphill all the way to the midpoint, then another 25 miles a low grade downhill. The route starts out in open prairie south on NM32. I stopped at the Quemado Cowboy Church to re-create Isam’s award-winning photo,

At times it rained pretty hard last night. We’ll see what the day brings. Did I say it’s cold up here? Wow. Morning low 34F, only 4 degrees above the Springerville record. We decided to leave a little later than usual to hopefully let it warm up a little. Breakfast at the ABV trough, then off to Safeway for ride provisions, then a c-store exiting town. As you know, there are exactly no services at all on day 1, just a long stretch of open road. I’m always surprised how much effort it takes to go the first 14 miles

Planning took at least 2 last minute turns. The traditional way to do the GABA Luna Lakes route starts in Springerville, then goes to Quemado NM, Reserve NM, and then back to Springerville in a triangle. Unfortunately, our plan overlaps elk hunting season, and the lone motel in Quemado stated no vacancy the day we’d planned it.   I decided to try the route backwards (which worked the timing issue in Quemado). Well, it might be interesting that way, although I was immediately wondering about prevailing winds. Nearing our ride week, however, the day 1 forecast was for heavy rain and