Given it’s a zero day I thought I’d bore you by sharing info about Bob and the equipment we have on board.

The unsung hero of any of my trips has been Bob, my trusty Bombtrack Hook Ext.
Bombtrack is a German brand, steel frame tourer/gravel bike….and it’s seemingly bombproof. Compared to the machines riding the Divide it’s pretty ill equiped for the gruelling trails given its lack of suspension and tyre width.

I run a ‘one by’ meaning it has one elliptical 40 tooth chain ring on the front, paired with an 11-51 rear 11 speed cassette. I have 700 x 44 tyres paired with Helix rims with DT Swiss rear hub and a SON dynamo hub front which powers a USB port where I can charge my powerbanks for my electric stuff like my phones, kindle etc (except when riding too slow to generate adequate wattage….like on the Divide!) All my panniers are Orlieb, with 2x 7 litre front fork mounted bags and 2 x 35 litre rear panniers. My top bag is Ortlieb, carrying my navigation and electrical equipment and documents (it detaches to become a shoulder bag). I have 3 mounted bottle cages carrying 3 x 750 ml of water, plus two bar mounted bottle bags with 1 water bottle plus my petrol for the stove. The bike is fixed with a Knog GPS tracker and motion alarm. I’m running the new era hybrid brakes which are cable actuated, with 4 hydraulic pistons in each caliper. I use SPD pedals connected to Lake SPD clip shoes designed for walking in as well as cycling (which is just as bloody well!!). My tyres are Victoria Mezcals 44, designed specifically for gravel riding.
In terms of equipment, I have
•⁠ ⁠1 down sleeping bag
•⁠ ⁠I thermal inner sleep bag (for really cold nights)
•⁠ ⁠I X air roll mat for sleeping on
•⁠ ⁠Two air pillows
•⁠ ⁠One MSR Hubba tent weighing under a KG
•⁠ ⁠One MSR whisperlite stove which burns any flammable liquid
•⁠ ⁠I x cooking pot set (2 pots) plus cleaning equipment
•⁠ ⁠Collapsible plate/bowl/cup plus spork for eating
•⁠ ⁠A full tool kit to repair bike issues and materials (tent, clothing etc) plus weatherman multi tool
•⁠ ⁠Mini air compressor to inflate tyres plus a mini track pump to inflate tyres
•⁠ ⁠My Kindle
•⁠ ⁠Head torch
•⁠ ⁠Puncture repair equipment
•⁠ ⁠Spares bag -cables, electrical wires, tape, sewing kit, chain oil, grease, clothes
•⁠ ⁠Washing and toiletries bag (plus loo roll 🤣)
•⁠ ⁠Plug adapter and 2 x powerbanks
•⁠ ⁠Full medical supplies kit for managing most illnesses and injuries
•⁠ ⁠One bag of clothes for camp wear – shorts, Ts, thermal tops, legging, socks and jocks, beanie, sandals.
•⁠ ⁠One stuff sack carrying cycling kit for riding.
•⁠ ⁠2 c foul weather cycling gear and a thermal jacket
•⁠ ⁠1 X bottle bear spray
•⁠ ⁠Water filter for cleaning dirty water to drink……

And enough food for as many days as needed. For breakfast it’s usually pitta bread, honey and some oats, lunch it pitta bread and honey with a treat like cereal bar, and tea is usually noodles or rice with something added for flavour like tuna. It’s all pretty bland and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognise that I’m putting out 3-4000kcal per day and only putting back around 1500 🥲. But despite the blandness each meal is always consumed with vigour!

Tomorrow we hit 4-5 days off grid but if Jake gets signal I’ll hotspot and let you all know I’m ok! Otherwise it’ll be next week after a week of radio silence! Thanks everyone for your continued support – gonna need it these coming days! There’s rain forecast plus snow on the highest peaks…gulp! As I write this there’s huge thunderstorms brewing on the mountain. ⛰️

Cuba town
After a restless night I got up at 6 to start the process of decamping. We hit the general store when it opened at 7. The guy who owns it, Dennis, was already up and about, and his opener this morning was ‘coffee on me’! I had made the mistake of eating a burrito en route yesterday and gee, it played havoc with my stomach, so I had a dicky tummy this morning. Not pleasant at all! Anyways, we got bagged up and hit the road at 8, with 50 odd miles. We hit the first of countless short but steep hills towards the first pit stop, a general store on the reserve around 22 miles in. We were all struggling today with the hills, the headwind, and sore arses. One of the real problems with wild camping is not only not showering but also not being able to wash cycling clothes, so the opportunity to keep the nether region clean and thus free of infection is significantly reduced. We were all suffering from saddle sores due to lack of hygiene 🥲. We hit the general store around 11 and gorged on sandwiches and cola. It was getting very hot and we knew we had over 30 miles to Cuba. Given we were all shattered we rode our own ride, each lost in their own world of pain! After 16 miles we found a tree to sit under and had some food but we all had that issue of being over hungry and unable to tolerate food! But the rest was so welcome in the mid afternoon sun. We eventually got going again with 14 miles to go. Luckily it was mainly flat or slightly downhill. After another slog of a day we got to Cuba. There was supposed to be a free camp site in the town but it turns out it was at the back of the shabby shopping centre frequented by local addicts and those doing it tough. Michael rode ahead and got us a 3bed motel room – what a fantastic way to end two hard days. The shower was amazing! We were all totalled so there wasn’t a load of banter, but we did apply ourselves to tomorrow’s route. One option was the dirt trail, but feedback from others a day or two ahead was that there was no water for the total 77miles, at least a two day ride. The elevation gain was over 5,000ft! On the other route there was water at mid way but a 3,300ft climb in just under 13 miles….so a tough ride either way. The absence of water on option 1 led us to the decision to take the long climb option. Welcome retired early each lost in their own thoughts about tomorrow!

Abiquiu
We were up at 5:30 and sitting in McDs at 6:15! Over a 1000Kcal for over $6! A guy came over to chat to us and his opening comment was ‘Welcome to my fucked up country’!!  We hit the road at 7:30 and straight away I noted an issue with my bike with a serious shimmy – where the front end of the bike shakes uncontrollably. Bob was almost unrideable. After some adjustments I got it to where he was rideable enough! We got the first hill almost straight away, and the rest of the day was either going up or heading down! We had initially planned to wild camp about 30 miles in but as we were making good progress we kept riding until a campsite near Abiquiu. It was another tough ride, but only a side show to what’s to come – the high mountains. Altitude sickness is going to be an issue and the terrain is all trail. And very little water tho as we have headed north the landscape has really changed from desert to pine forests and mountains so we are hoping that the streams will be running. Tomorrow is a zero day – I’m shattered, with 197 miles in three days and over 8,000ft of climbing. Jake who I’ve been riding with is to be credited with a number of the photos!
Till tomorrow. Tx

Lunch on the road 😊

After two lovely days at the Lava Flow hostel it was time to get some Ks under the belt. Jake and I met up with Michael at the USPS office and so us three amigos hit the road. It was slightly cooler than of late but we were starting late so knew we’d hit the midday sun. We had in mind a dry camp ground about 120k away in the Navajo Reserve. We made good progress but it was lumpy as all hell, so that slowed us down somewhat. Today was a ‘head down, bum up’ kinda day where we needed to make progress on the trail and road sections. This was very much my kinda riding day and after the two days in Grants I was feeling ok. The other two were not in such a ‘comfort zone’ but we rode our own ride and regrouped at the top of the climbs, of which there were plenty! At noon we elected to take a meal break under a tree just off the trail. It was simply great to just crash out, eat our pitta bread and honey and snacks and just ‘be’. We had cleared 30 miles. Our only water stop was a further 22miles at an Indian Reservation Community centre. We slogged over each climb in to a building headwind until we got to White Horse and the community centre. A much needed break and water fill up opportunity. Jake was starting to really struggle but we had 20+miles to a dry campsite – an unofficial site opened up by some kind store owner. Those final miles were very challenging for Jake but at 6:30 we rolled in to this unofficial campsite which is a general store in the absolute middle of nowhere which allows us bikers to camp out back. It store had water and a great selection of snacks! We pitched tent and set about cooking up our respective teas to refuel. There’s no showers or toilets or power so we had to be self sufficient. We had cleared over 75 miles and 3,400 ft of climbing -my biggest day so far. It was sad to hear that Stevo, one of the Aussie riders from a few days ago had had to abandon due to infected saddle sore. It’s so easy to get on the trail as often there’s no shower to properly clean oneself. We all start to smell pretty bad after a while!! By 9:30 all three of us are tucked up in our tents after a very long day in the saddle!

Pace line to Grants 😊

The ‘Narrows’ to Grants:
I didn’t sleep too well last night – a night of a thousand naps as they say. Us bikers were up n about by 7 and supping coffee from the RV hosts – oh so good! We all have our own zone routine in decamping in the morning, and it was interesting to see how everyone navigates this part of a bikers day. We got rolling around 8:30 and had 5 riders rolling down the highway. This was my happy place and my bike set up is perfectly tuned for this type of riding, whereas the guys who cruised over the washboarding with their 2:65 tyres struggle on tarmac.

What has become abundantly apparent to me is that neither Bob or me are comfortable or confident on the rocky, dusty, washboard trails like the Divide. I have found my limits on these trails, and have decided I hate that type of riding – I get no pleasure from it, and my set up is simply incompatible with the trail life….or certainly the trail life here in NM, which has been made incredibly challenging, compounded through the stress of having access to limited water.

All my fellow bikers who camped last night with me were equally stressed by the same issue, and the hikers are experiencing dreadful conditions.

We rolled the 20 miles in to the outskirts of Grants and crashed in to Subway for breakfast! It was delicious. Then we went our separate ways. Jake and I are crashing at a warmshowers hostel in town, which is a community hostel, free for Warmshowers members like me 😊. I was tired from lack of sleep, so basically rested in between bouts of questioning what to do next!!! I’m still under powered, but there’s definitely some restoration of my riding legs. There’s so much hassle trying to get the bike north via bus or train, and there’s a corner of my brain that still wants to finish this section of NM, universally understood as the most challenging section of the GDMBT. Jake and another rider are riding from Grants on Tuesday so I may tag along – there’s safety in numbers. I’ll sleep on it and make a decision tomorrow.

In the evening we went up to the famous Route 66 and found an all you can eat Asian buffet eatery….and we set about putting them out of business!! It’s been a welcomed relaxed day, and I decided last minute not to camp but pay a few bucks for a bed….and a pillow, not a tent and sleeping bag!

Zero Day
Apparently in hiker lingo, a ‘zero day’s is one where one does zero, nada, ziltch. A rest day in cycling parlance. And so today was a zero day here in Grants, a dilapidated run down town on Route 66 best seen in the rear view mirror! It’s a junk yard of old beaten up cars and derelict homes and vacated buildings….actually very sad to see, as people here are clearly doing it tough. So the day was spent around the hostel, fixing bikes, washing clothes, sewing up torn shorts, drinking, eating etc. I got the opportunity to talk to my Niamh in Aus this afternoon -oh what a joy it was to see her and chat about her world of school, animals, the names of her horse collection. Made all these past few weeks evaporate.

Jake and I headed to Walmart on our unloaded machines….it looked like we were drunks weaving all over the joint, as an unloaded bike handles so differently from a loaded machine. I needed supplies, shorts, straps and replacement bits. I had touched base with Chris who I had started out with. He had a horror few days, having lost one of his panniers on a really nasty rocky decent part of the trail, and given his focus on staying alive as he crashed over rocks he hadn’t noticed it had gone. It had his sleeping pack and food, so he was rightly screwed. He got rescued by a friend who drove up to meet him.
It’s one thing of many I’ve learned here on the trail – just how mentally absorbing riding gravel is. You have to constantly survey the next 10 metres ahead to find a line which is 1% less likely to throw you off the bike. It’s exhausting, and even more stressful when going downhill. On a road you can almost dial out bar the potholes. Chat away. Look ahead. On the trail it is hyper vigilance for every minute of every hour. You even have to stop to drink, none of this reaching down for the bottle with one hand whilst pedalling! That’ll bring you to a stop pretty damn quick!

One of the hikers I met at Toaster House is a hiker called ASAP – Always Say a Prayer – all hikers have ‘trail names’ -he’s a 70+ gentleman who is such a humble soul. He lost his son at 34 and shares the journey of healing he’s on. He made it to Lava Flow hostel we were staying in. He exclaimed ‘New Mexico makes me feel so inadequate’ – it’s been a brutal hike for him so far.

Tomorrow we hit the trail towards the town of Cuba. There’s a road/ light trail option which is much longer but easier to navigate, then the rocky, bike breaking, pannier smashing section to Abiquiu.

Let’s do this. Soon I’ll be out of New Mexico. I can retire then 🤣🤣

The road ahead 😊

Despite feeling better, the sense of exhaustion is not abating, and my cough, tho not productive, is irritating. Any exertion triggers a feeling of physical emptiness which is frustrating. I’m holding food down, the nose bleeds have stopped and the fever is definitely abating, albeit slowly. So I am having to face down a key decision very soon – a ‘sliding door moment’ as Corrine mentioned; from here there is a part trail, part road section of the Divide, which takes me to Grants, the next town for restock. The option of continuing up the trail to a town called Cuba is obviously there, but there’s also a one chance Plan B – ride to Albuquerque from Grants along the infamous Route 66, and grab a car hire, lift or bus to get ahead of my schedule in to Colorado. If I miss that opportunity, I’ll have no option but to stay on the trail until at least Denver, a very long way away over the Indiana Pass. Common sense dictates that there is no real choice if I’m honest with myself. Leap frogging forward and trying to enjoy the rest of the Divide is a no brainer, especially given how I’m feeling.

The afternoon was spent sleeping and packing in between bouts of running to the loo….I’ve been force feeding myself, perhaps a bit too much, as the stomach is not appreciative at all 💩🥲. I met a few other volunteers at the Hostel. One thing is very clear – there are some weird people here! There is a common belief in conspiracy theories, alternative whackery and a strong undercurrent of damn right stupidity! All lovely lovely people, but as mad as a cut snake! You start chatting and it starts out well, very cordial and ‘normal’ (whatever that is!) but then they throw in ‘the stars are watching me as we speak’ or ‘the government have been spying on me through YouTube’ or ‘I don’t read any books – I let the music of words give me wisdom’ …..yep, grand, sure…..!

I availed of the services of a food truck that parks up close to the hostel – now that’s smart business…..a constant supply of hungry hikers and bikers…- then hit the sack at 8. I was able to hook in to someone’s hotspot so it was so lovely to reconnect with friends and read emails, and chat to Lu about her upcoming travels. Anything to draw my mind back to the fact that there is a life going on out there! This is alien territory for 99.9% of folks, me included, being so isolated. But there’s also something quite guttural and historical about it too, with echos in our DNA of times long past.

I got up at 6 and started packing up in between copious (that was an error I paid for later given the amount of pee stops I made!) amounts of coffee and chat before heading out. Jake….Mr Hotspot….was also bagging up when I had the bad news to share that his back tyre was, er, flat! Cool dude just shrugged his shoulders and set about fixing it. Me….id have cried! I hit out at 8ish stating I would see Jake on the road no doubt. The first stopping point was TLC Ranch where they put out water etc for us hikers and bikers. It was 15 miles away. And bang….straight after leaving the hostel the most hideous washboard I’ve seen or experienced started….and stayed….all the way to TLC. It was however a bit overcast so I just dialled in a low gear and cussed and swore my way to the Ranch! About 5 k in I was given a vivid reminder of just how fragile and dangerous it is out here. A Subaru hatch came toward me about a k ahead (you can see the dust for miles) and then out of nowhere he simply disappeared. I came across the car, which was crushed having rolled a few times and landed on its wheels. The driver got out, very matter of fact, and surveyed the wreck! He explained his front wheel got stuck in a sand bog, he lost control….and this was the outcome….flipped a half ton car like paper and off he went! He called for a mate with a jeep to come tow him out. He was unscathed so I carried on….you can imagine my surprise when about 3 k later he drives pass me, no windshield, the car moving sideways as much as forward, exhaust on the ground, and him smoking a fag!!

I got to TLC ranch and stopped for half hour to just rest. The 15 miles was not too demanding thank goodness.

Jake arrived about half hour later so we shared horror stories of the washboard. I set off to an agreed campsite off trail about 15miles north. I think that they were the most hideous trail ride I have had the displeasure of riding. I was riding around 5kph – the washboard was excruciating and the space between each one was just full of sand. Bob really struggled with the constant bombardment and my will to live evaporated. It was unendingly painful. I eventually got to the turn off to the camp site and just when I thought I had seen the worst it got worse. It was a sand ridden single track which could not be ridden. I got to the ‘campsite’ and decided there and then I wasn’t going to stay. It was remote, dry and full of animal tracks. I walked back to the road from hell but couldn’t see Jake. So I left a message in the dirt for Jake and left for the main road some 6k further on the road of hell. I eventually got to the road and met Leon, a goat farm rancher who was parked up at the start of the road of hell. He explained he had gone 50k around a route to avoid the road from hell, so I felt less of a whingy softy! He gave me a tangerine and water. I turned on to the road and cried….it was so so soft! It was a tail wind and slightly down hill through some stunning landscape. I caught up with some hikers and then met two Aussies riders. Then Jake emerged. And he had missed my note in the dirt and had traced my steps to the disused campsite! We all eventually got to the campground and pitched up with a couple in an RV who made us all so welcome. We had an incredible evening of story telling and tales of the trail….this is bike touring at its best. Then Jake went to empty his food plate only to stumble on a rattle snack! This bugger was huge! Didn’t exactly settle people’s nerves! We chatted for hours. And retired around 9! I cleared 80k which has been the longest ride so far.