Back Across the Continental Divide
When I walked out of the church into the crisp morning air, I didn’t know the actual temperature but I did know it was cold enough to retreat back into the building and put on all the cool-weather stuff I had. I reemerged wearing knee warmers, arm warmers, an extra jersey, and a light wind jacket. It still wasn’t enough, but I hoped that with the clear sky overhead, the temperature would quickly climb as the sun did its job.
The town had two gas stations working as bookends, and though I’d only been riding for about five minutes, my hands were already going numb. I pulled into the parking lot with two objectives. Buy any pair of gloves they had for sale and the largest cup of coffee they sold, which I would drink slowly, hoping the sun got motivated while I caffeinated myself. Seeing no reason to make these purchases at the same time, I found the coffee, paid, and then slowly walked around, getting curious stares from the ranchers and regulars who were also stopping in for their morning fix. They all greeted each other by name, and while they were polite enough to not discuss their confusion over the skinny Lycra-wearing kid walking around the store with a cup of coffee, there was plenty of nonverbal communication flying around between them.
I found an aisle with a small selection of gloves—all designed for manual labor, not for cycling—so I picked the ones that I thought would be the warmest while still allowing for enough dexterity to shift gears. Making my way back up to the counter, I noticed a digital thermometer on the wall indicating that it was 30 degrees outside. Without all the gear I had at home to add or remove layers the actual number didn’t help provide any information I didn’t already know. It was cold, and I was under dressed.
“Where you headed?” the white-haired man wearing an impressive series of layered flannel shirts under a well-worn tan Carhartt jacket asked.
“Socorro for the day,” I said, opting for the short version. I wasn’t quite sure if he was being polite or might actually be interested in the longer version of the trip.
“That’s pretty far,” he said. “About 100 miles or so.”
“Yeah. Should be alright. Be nice if it warmed up,” I said, gesturing toward the gloves.
“It’ll warm up. It’s cold out there now because the sky cleared up after the storm yesterday. Give it a few hours,” he said confidently. “When you get past Magdalena, you’ll drop off a ridge all the way into Socorro. Some people just put their cars in neutral and coast all the way into town. I bet you won’t have to pedal at all through there,” he laughed.
It took about ten minutes to realize I’d bought the wrong gloves. It wasn’t that they weren’t warm. They were doing a fine enough job keeping my hands from going completely numb. Their flaw, which I figured out the hard way, was they were made of an extremely scratchy material. So as my nose began to drip snot like a faucet, every time I’d wipe it I’d scrape the area with what began to feel like sandpaper. As my nose became raw, I shifted the wiping duties to my right shoulder, turning my head frequently to leave a snot trail on the sleeve of my jacket. I figured it was a fine compromise.
The road out of Quemado was a steady climb for around twenty-five miles until I hit the Continental Divide at around 8,000 feet of elevation. I was surprised that I was higher here than when I’d crossed Logan’s Pass in Glacier. The contrast in the two passages couldn’t have been more different. In Glacier, I was surrounded by towering granite, snow-capped mountains. Here, in New Mexico, I was surrounded by pine trees. I was basically on top of everything and anything that was higher than me didn’t exactly require a craning neck to take it all in. As I attempted to shift gears, which required a lot more concentration due to my cold, nearly frozen hands, I was reminded that not everything was dissimilar about my two trips across the divide.
The remaining seventy-five miles into Socorro dropped about 3,000 feet of elevation, which made for some pretty fast and effortless riding. Aside from the occasional small rise, I was flying through the gravity-aided miles. I probably could’ve coasted most of the day, but it was a lot more fun to cruise between twenty to twenty-five mph, speeds that felt like I was absolutely flying when compared to the usual fifteen mph I’d grown accustomed to.
As I rolled out of Magdalena, I was looking forward to my dive-bomb into Socorro, as predicted by the guy back at the gas station. Since a lot of the route was downhill, I found myself in a constant state of wondering whether I was past the imaginary starting line of the ridge he described. The problem, I came to realize, is that the infamous drop-off was much farther past Magdalena than he likely realized when traveling at bike speeds. If you were doing sixty mph in the car, the ten or so miles would take you about ten minutes. Even at the elevated speeds I was enjoying, it would still take me about a half hour to go ten miles. Just about the time I’d resigned to pedaling all the way into town, the highway took a sweeping left, which revealed the valley below that played host to Socorro and the road dropped away into a right-hand bend. I assumed I’d found it.
The descent did pick up in earnest after that right sweeper, but unfortunately I can’t report that I made it all the way to town without pedaling again. I’m not sure if it was the fact that even a small vehicle outweighed me by a couple thousand pounds, or if you needed to start the descent at sixty-plus mph to carry enough momentum, but through one section, as my speed was dropping into the single digits, I decided the experiment had ended and I started pedaling again. I didn’t have to pedal much and the speeds were generally pretty high, making for a fun, fast final twenty or so miles to end the day.
As I found the motel where I was staying for the night, I looked at my computer and saw that I’d ridden 105 miles. It was the first time I’d cracked 100 in a while. I was happy to have covered the distance today, but the devil on my shoulder quietly reminded me it was mostly downhill, setting off just enough doubt that I stopped celebrating the achievement. Would I have made it if it had been flat or included a significant amount of climbing? I knew I’d conquered long, hard days earlier in the trip, but could I handle them now? I wasn’t sure. I was definitely filled with doubt as every aspect that should’ve brought me confidence, would find a counterpoint to put me back in my place.
The motel was fine, but I was paying for it out of my budget. Mom was having a hard time finding hosts in the South. We were both confused but it seemed Southern hospitality was a phrase people liked hanging on their walls more than an actual way of life. Still, we were hopeful that this was just a rough patch and the string of hosts willing to at least let me camp in their yards would pick back up.
But for the next two nights, I was staying in motels before getting to Plainview, my place of birth and where I’d spend a few days with family. As the receptionist swiped my credit card, I felt guilty for not camping and trying to save a few bucks. That guilt washed away down the drain of the shower and under the covers of the bed. In my current headspace, camping was out. I knew if I had to camp every night just to make it back to Richmond, I’d never make it.
