The final state

So New Mexico was just a couple of miles away from our improvised campsite. The night had been a chilly one with a thick sheet off ice formed from hail in the night covering the tent. It had also been a noisy night with the yammering and howling antics of coyote and at some time in the early morning what I guess was some kind of big military plane coming down the valley on a low level night flying exercise. But the morning was sunny, and despite the horror stories other riders tell of New Mexico mud and the slightly soggy night, myself and Ben decided to give the route a go rather than take the high way alternative.

Well I can say that mud was not an issue thankfully. But the day was probably my toughest ride on the divide. It turned out La manga pass was the low point going into New Mexico. As we crossed the border into very Colorado looking country we simply climbed and climbed over some seriously rough terrain. In a fifty mile day the first ten miles probably took us half the day. At one point the route was so rocky and steep we had to push the bikes for half a mile as it was completely unridable. Even the downhills were slow due to endless rocks, boulders and ruts.

But what will really make this day stick out for me and why it was tough is that by the time we hit the six mile climb on the highway to the Hopewell campsite the light was already failing. It's one thing to know you could push yourself further when you feel done. It's another to actually keep doing it again and again. Something of a revelation. Pushing every muscle in my legs to get up the highway before the light failed completely we pulled into the campsite with moonlight on our backs. A new experience for me.

Setting up camp in the dark and cooking actually proved to not be too much of a problem (thanks to the aforementioned moonlight in part ). Ben makes me laugh, even in the pitch black he goes finding fire wood for his little wood burner, and then chops and fries onions, and beans and tomatoes, adding in a little fresh coriander. He's like a cycling cross between Ray Mears and Gordon Ramsay.

What made me laugh even more were the critters in the campsite. Star of the show has to go to Rocky raccoon. I heard a rustling at my feet. When I looked down from the table Rocky was having a rummage through my panniers right next to me. He gave me a 'what? I'm busy here' Look. We had to chase Rocky off several times with a stick the courageous little bugger.

This was followed up with a night time chorus of elk bugling, and coyote yammering. The cows, wanting to prove they have some wild animal credentials as well, twice broke into the camp knocking over all sorts of metal sounding things by some of the camper vans making everyone think it was a bear. Quality.

Today was a great ride though, mainly of sweet downhill with one or two prolonged climbs, into country which slowly became more and more like the New Mexico you would imagine. After sixty miles roughly we made, as the map put it, the full service town of Abiquiu. Well it's essentially a last century looking village on a hill with dirt streets, while all services are included in a hotel and a petrol station out on the highway. Kind of cool though, but nowhere to spend a rest day.

However somehow through various detours worrying about mud and trying to find an unmelted pair of cycling shorts Maarten is here, although still a pair of shorts down. So tomorrow to tackle the toughest (not longest or highest) climb on the divide, up the side of a volcano, there will be three intrepid riders. Let's see how long that lasts.

Touching the frozen sky

Last time I wrote I was waiting for a new rack in del Norte. Well it became pretty obvious that it wasn't going to come first thing next day, and that I was going to have a day to kill. However as I looked out beyond the town to the pass I was supposed to be climbing I could see dark storm clouds gathering, so maybe it wasn't such a bad day to hang around town even if I wasn't convinced about del Norte. To make things better we also checked out of 'the worst motel on the divide' into the historic Windsor hotel. The place is so out of sync with the rest of the town, but the woman cut us a great deal, was a little superstar, and we had a little slice of old school American luxury. So all in all it wasn't a bad day and even better Monday night was pizza delivery truck night in del Norte, and this combined with Monday night football. The green bay packers were robbed!

The next day I still wasn't sure where my rack was at, or however long it would be. Maybe not even that day. So I said to Maarten he may as well get going and I would catch him up if I could. Well a couple of hours later my new upgraded rack (thanks old man mountain) appeared. It was eleven, and I spent the next fifty minutes rushing to fit it and buying groceries, and somehow was ready to set off up the pass by ten to twelve.

Why the big rush? Well I was about to tackle Indiana pass, the biggest, highest and longest pass on the divide at just a smidgen below twelve thousand feet. The map said 'make sure to get an early start out of del Norte for this 24 mile climb', hah!

So I set off knowing that I had to keep going and to keep pushing the forty miles to the campground if I wanted to make it in daylight. Well the first twelve miles may have technically been climbing, but were just easy pavement in reality. But then the real twelve mile climb to the pass began. It was hard work and pretty steep in places. More than anything it was just relentless, somewhere in between three to four hours pedal churning from start to finish. Of course as you go up four thousand feet you start to notice the air get a little thinner. However the result of this trip is that's not such a big problem for me now.

No one told the weather I was to have an easy ride up there though. I'm now racing south to make some of the warmer, lower areas, of New Mexico so I'm not caught out by snow on the passes. Well two miles from the top of Indiana that Colorado snow started coming down. I had to stop and throw on all the snow gear, and for previous readers the now invaluable ski gloves got to prove their worth.

Geared up I gritted my teeth and got to the top as the snow eased a little leaving the landscape slightly speckled with white. I gave a grim whoop of satisfaction to myself and no one else in particular. The sky decided to throw down a little hail on me for comedic effect.

And what reward for this achievement. Well the sign mentions the elevation but nothing else and just points you off to Summitville (a fairly ugly mine site you pass a few miles later which contaminates all the water sources nearby). So I went downhill only to find a muddy slippery track spraying my bike and myself with cold wet muck. So much muck that when I realised that the downhill was pretty sharp and short and that I would be spending the next fifteen miles climbing back up and down to just below the height I was on the pass, the front derailuer became so jam packed with mud that it stopped it from changing gears. Not helpful for all this climbing just after the 'highest' point on the divide. Still nothing I couldn't sort with a good old fashioned high tech stick.

That was one exhausting, cold, muddy afternoon. Five miles after leaving the pass the sky thought maybe I had not understood it's earlier joke and bucketed hail down all over the place, pinging it off my face and helmet. The sky let out one solitary thunderous boom of laughter at its own joke. I told it to shut up. It did!

Eventually I reached a blissful point in realising I was on a four mile, genuine downhill, stretch to the campsite. I made it at half six with perhaps half an hour or so of daylight to spare. I was so tired and cold that when I put my tent up I simply ate a bagel and went to bed. My day was done.

I woke to a very frosty morning, and the realisation the valley I was in was covered with gorgeous autumnal aspens. Very pretty, but icy. As I was packing up and trying to dry my stuff (because of the cold your breath just condenses on things in your tent, my leaking camelbak that night didn't help either though) another divide rider came in. Ben had come over the pass behind me, and decided to just camp in the trees when the failing light and cold had got too much.

As we were heading in the same direction we rode on together (I never seem to be riding on my own for long), and up over stunner pass with the usual Colorado sunshine restored into platoro. I walked into the cafe and was immediately asked 'are you the Englishman'? Maarten had stayed the night before and left a couple of hours earlier, and apparently melted his cycling shorts above the fire which made me laugh, although I guess not him.

So me and Ben stuffed some food into our faces and set off down the valley for twenty miles and then up the highway and over La manga pass. A paved ten thousand foot pass, no problem! Funny how some things can change your perspective!

We camped just off the highway and away from a dirt track right on the border of New Mexico, and that would be the next day and the start of the final state in my journey down the continental divide.

Photos: you can see how the other side of my rack failed as well as I took it off in del Norte, probably because of all the extra flex my diy on the other side had added. However no diy will save the truck we found that had gone over the edge on stunner pass!

Beeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaar!

Ok ok, so yes, after hoping to see one for ages, and thinking I had probably missed the chance now that I'm only a couple of days ride from New Mexico (and grizzly country is a long way behind), I at last saw a bear. But I will get to that.

Out of Sargents we set off hoping to put a long day in, to get us a little closer to Del Norte so we could make it in two days rather than three, myself still with my terminally injured pannier rack.

Well the day to me just felt tough for some reason. Even though Marshall pass the day before had been a really long climb, the views had been so spectacular it didn't seem to count. Anyway the last part of the day was spent climbing Cochetopa pass, back up to over ten thousand feet again. Conversely and almost stupidly this was the easiest part of the day. Apart from the steep finish to the climb, at times I found myself going faster than at almost any other point that day, I cannot for the life of me explain why. Well not unless they put some kind of amphetamine in the energy sweets I had at the bottom.

Just before the top in an alley of the golden aspens that have come to represent Colorado for me, despite the little squeaky mouse that lives inside the bottom bracket of my bike (every time I turn the pedals he gives off a little squeak of indignation until I feed him some oil) we managed to creep up on a coyote stood with his back to us. When we got to within about twenty metres his ears swiveled around and I could see the look on his face wondering how we had managed to get so close without his noticing. Of course at that point he bolted off down the hill into the aspens. He had his revenge howling like a banshee in the middle of the night though!

By the top of the pass Maarten and I agreed that the long day plans were done for, as the next campsite was more than twenty miles away, and called it a day at fifty miles or so. We decided that we would try for the sixty miles plus to del Norte the next day.

So we pulled into Ludders Creek campsite. However we saw that all the pitches were full. We soon found out why. A group of friends have been meeting there every third weekend in September for the last 26 years. Anyway the 'sideways' crew invited us to their party and told us to put up our tents wherever we could find space.

We had a great night. They warned us that they were bunch of hippies, but what they were was Damn hospitable. They were a great group who knew how to have fun, and for two hungry bikers, the food they gave us, oh man! Green chili stew, pork ribs, pasta salad, some kind of potato and sausage casserole, elk brisket in gravy, peach pie, chocolate brownie....the list goes on. Maarten and I took a bag of chips (crisps) and a packet of wiggly worm candy (sweets) as our contribution. Ah well we didn't exactly have much else. But the food was so good and sure as hell beat freeze dried spaghetti with meat sauce or whatever I was supposed to be having. Sideways crew we salute you!

The next day (after a very generous breakfast being thrown into the bargain) we said our farewells and set off down the pass so that we could start climbing another, Carnero pass. Well what a pretty day it was with some lovely country, and interesting rock formations throughout the journey. The pass was one of the tougher climbs as well, and it felt good to conquer it and get to the top. Then it happened!

Coming down the other side Maarten pointed to the side of the trail. Slowing right down to a stop I saw a young baby black bear cub, undoubtedly one of this year's new borns snuffling around. We slowly started to back up being probably no more than twenty metres away again. The cub came out onto the side of the trail, covered in his dense furry fluff, looked at us and actually started to walk towards us, which freaked me out a bit as we had no idea where mum was. Maarten afterwards suggested that with my now supreme beard he probably mistook me for mum. Anyway he must have caught our scent because after a few yards he turned around and lolloped off with his furry self into the woods.

I can't tell you how excited and happy I was at this point, literally bouncing around and grinning from ear to ear. It was the realisation of a dream for the trip but also one from being a kid and idolising David Attenborough and watching wildlife on one religiously. We were still a little nervous of mum charging out of the bushes though, so decided to talk loudly for a few minutes to encourage her and cub to move away if they were just in the trees.

I wish I had got a photo now, but at the time, and with no idea where mother was, I had gone to reach for the camera, but had managed to tell myself that the correct thing to do was not to do anything threatening, back up slowly, and to have the bear spray handy if anything at all. Anyway he looked like some of these dudes, particularly the brown ones!

Well the rest of the day was pretty cool too but nothing could really match that, unless Maarten got mauled by a cougar or something (kidding Maarten!). After passing some incredible rock pillars and buttresses we arrived at the nowhereville of La Garita. The one stop shop, restaurant and gas station was shut. So we sat outside and ate bagels with chocolate spread (actually pretty good trail food, thanks to Colin for the tip) and some dried fruit from the lovely sideways people. We noticed the Wi-Fi for the shop was on though, so I checked my emails. The rack company are not sending my replacement until today, having not managed it on Saturday. This has kind of bummed me out. Having made it to del Norte first impressions of the town are not great, I think I would rather be back in the 'armpit of Wyoming'. And it looks like I'm going to have to spend a day and a half here at least.

The duct tape and zip ties combination on my rack has actually been amazing. I think I may have improved the design by adding a little bit of flex. However I don't trust it over a 150 miles into some isolated spots of New Mexico to the next post office on route where they could send the rack. Still despite all that I saw a bear!!!!

Photos: it's gross but we found the body of a huge squished snake out on the trail. I also had to slam on the brakes outside del Norte when a little baby rattler was lying on the two track trail right in front of me. We also found the mother load when it comes to my obsession with used ammunition lying around. And we saw a sign for the route, but it's a bit of a con as its a detour round the airport (a strip of grass with a few huts) in del Norte, that seems to take forever. Maybe a divide rider got their head chopped off by a plane or something though!

Duct tape is king, all hail duct tape!

I have no idea where to start this post, seems like a lot has happened in the last four days, in fact I can't quite believe it's only four days since I was in fairplay.

Anyway first things first. I made the seventy miles to salida in one day. In fact I fairly cruised it and got into town for about three pm. What I do remember about the day though is that county road 53 is a son of a gun of a road when it comes to wash board. I realise I have talked about this before but this time I thought to include some photos of what I'm talking about. You can maybe see why bouncing along on wavy road is no fun with frozen hands...And it's generally speaking no fun on your backside at any time. A bit like getting a rythmical ass kicking, literally.

Anyway washboard aside it was a fairly cool day. It looked a lot like cow boy country again till I got closer to salida. At the top of a little sharp short hill I met Frank McMurry. A seventy five year old cattle rancher with a business card simply saying eat beef. Anyway we got chatting and he said he was out checking some of his cattle. He said he had a state lease on what to my ears sounded a ridiculous amount of land, it may as well have been three billion acres, but essentially every cow I had seen in the last 40 miles had been one of his. It also turns out his daughter was north American mountain bike champion and now a photographer. I saw some of her work in Fritz bar in salida, some cool pics of cool cruiser bikes.

The best bit of that whole day though was coming into salida. I dropped three thousand feet in about six miles or something crazy. Man that was a rush, I was absolutely whizzing along and the views of the valley and the monster fourteen thousand feet mountains that surround salida were just incredible. This was still not enough adrenalin for the slr camera I'm also carrying around though. When I hit a cattle grid my front handle bar bag flew open, and the camera also flew...right over my head. Heart in mouth moment. Somehow amazingly it all still works apart from the auto focus which for some shots I need to do manually. But that's just the lens so thumbs up for Canon camera body engineers!

And so I made salida, which is simply a cool dude of a town. The historic downtown is just lovely and full of cafes, bars, sports shops, restaurants etc. And the whole place is just set up for mountain biking, rafting, and snow sports. I could so live there, although finding any kind of job would be a problem.

Anyway I decided immediately to take a rest day. And that rest day turned into about ten beers plus and I don't know how many random conversations. I guess the bars just drew me in, and in this country staying out of a conversation is harder than getting into one, something brits could learn from. Not everyone is a mass murderer waiting to get us, I promise.

Also Maarten who I had left in Silverthorne as he went to see a friend in boulder managed to catch up which was cool. He was pretty keen to have a rest day though and I had no objections to hanging in salida for another day. Of course it being a rest day and all I couldn't resist the lure of the amazing single track trails they have there I had found out about in one of the bars. So after going to local bike shop and picking up a trail map I climbed up into the hills above the town and the big white S which sits on the hillside overlooking the whole place.

Well the single track was just great. A real blast, with plenty of technical and some damn rocky sections. It was also damn scary at first. Because everything curves around steep mountain country, you feel your always within about a foot of going off a cliff edge. Not exactly like riding Welsh trails!

But eventually after a big breakfast burrito this morning we left town and began the climb of about four thousand feet up to Marshall pass. And once again it proved no problem, but it sure was pretty. Well I say no problem, but in a comedy moment when the grade became pretty steep I changed down to the granny ring and my chain jammed. This combined with me being unable to clip out of the pedal led to perhaps the most laughable and slow motion bike crash in history. Basically I just slowly came to a stop, wobbled for a few seconds then fell over to my right into the dirt while wailing. Doh! I don't think Maarten could quite understand what was going on when he turned around haha! Luckily the truck with ten hot girls in didn't decide to show up at that moment.

So we stormed to the top of the pass, with Colorado continuing its stunning aspen fall foilage party trick and began down a few thousand feet to sargent.

After fifteen minutes an ominous rubbing sound came from my bike. On first inspection I thought the wheel had buckled as it was rubbing the pannier rack. However I soon realised that the rack had completely snapped on one side. Uh oh!

Anyway within ten minutes I managed to jury rig it with zip ties and duct tape. Honestly I think they may be the two most amazing inventions of all time, screw the i-phone five. And somehow it managed to hold together all the way down to the trading post at sargents.

Eventually after some cajoling I managed to get the owner to let me use his phone. Well the bike shop in salida only had old man mountain front racks so I rang the company directly. Now while it's disappointing it broke, this route does put all your kit under some major strain. Anyway on the plus side I got through to Johnny who is at the las Vegas trade show and what customer service. He is going to ship me an upgraded rack to the post office at the next town I hit, Del Norte. The question is can duct tape remain king that far? By hook or crook I will get there though!

Photos: I walked past the two barber shops which were virtually next door and they had me in stitches with their ten dollar cuts and ten dollar cuts fixed signs. I couldn't figure out if it was a scam or one dissing the other.