Adventure: New Mexico Training

If you notice, this poor bugger had eaten a mouse shortly before being killed by whatever it was that killed him/her.

I just did this ride for the second day in a row but forget to start Strava. Oh well. You get the idea. It’s almost light here at 5:30AM. This time of year anyway. I get on the road in the dark but by the time I hit downtown, which is .2 miles away, the sky is blood red over the Sangres. The first four hours of the day are so intensely good I can’t even describe it. Clear, crisp, some would say still bordering on cold. Yesterday I didn’t require a layer, but today I surely did. Not a long ride by any stretch, but everything here is uphill. As you dip and dive across the foothills there are dramatic temperature changes, sometimes within a ten foot span. As soon as the sun crests the warmth is immediately apparent as is the power of the rays at this altitude. In the distance lies Santa Fe Baldy and the ski basin. My brain says “You gotta do it,” meaning I must ride to the top on this trip. I haven’t done it in a few years and I know it’s near the outside of my limits. I will also hike Baldy on this trip, which I did last summer, but this time I want to spend more time on top. Then I begin to daydream. What if I ride my bike to the basin, then hike baldy, then come back to my bike and ride back home? The Santa Fe double? How wrecked would I be? Could I even make it?