GRANTS

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 🤣🤣