Take the highway that’s the best

~ Patrick O'Grady
Get hip to this timely tip.

This morning I was getting my kicks on Route 66.

I’ve been trying to mix things up a bit lately, do something out of the ordinary at least one day per week, and today it was a spin along a local stretch of John Steinbeck’s “Mother Road.”

Come fall, which it very much is not, the Geezers usually have a go at the climb to the Morning Star Grocery. This is an out-and-back ride, and mileage varies because not all of us start in the same place. Some, me among them, ride from home; others start from the Smith’s parking lot at Tramway and Central.

All of us get the same seven rolling miles of Mama to Tijeras, where the actual climbing starts as we turn right onto NM 337 and gear down for the 9.7-mile climb to the grocery. There we take five, patronize the shop, have a wee, and assign Manly Points, using a sliding scale that factors in the number of laps around the sun a rider has logged before the day’s exertions.

For me the ride winds up being a 45-mile round trip, more or less, with about 2,500 feet of vertical. A nice day in the saddle.

Today, I had planned to ride solo. No real purpose, beyond doing something other than roll around in the Sandia foothills, and before it got too hot, too; the NWS had issued another heat advisory for any and all mad dogs out in the noonday sun. So eight-ish I pulled the mango Steelman Eurocross from its hook and off we flew down Tramway, the idea being to ride to Tijeras and then … whatever.

From left, Gazette veterans Chris Coursey, Merrill Oliver, and Your Humble Narrator kit up for a California trip.

This would seem an odd choice of bike for anyone who didn’t know my habits. It’s a cyclocross bike, dates to 1998 or thereabouts, and in its present incarnation sports bar-end shifters, an eight-speed drivetrain, Dura-Ace hubs laced to Mavic Open Pro hoops, Paul’s cantis, just the one bottle cage, and a mixed pair of majorly old ’cross knobbies, MXPs from Clément (front) and Donnelly (rear). In 2006, I rode it from Santa Rosa to Hopland for a wedding, but not with those tires.

Mostly I ride it on trails, and so I forget what a great road bike the Eurocross is, especially on shitty roads. So I was having a high old time as we rolled into Tijeras, where on impulse I hung a right on NM 337 and started climbing because why the hell not?

Well, the answer to that was I only had one water bottle, one tube of Clif Blox, and no money, I probably felt swell because I’d had a tailwind pushing me to Tijeras, and sure it’s all downhill from the grocery except for where it isn’t and that headwind ain’t gonna eat itself.

So — believe it or not — I actually did the smart thing for once. I decided to ride to the Otero Trailhead and then turn around, which gave me a 30-mile ride with 1,600 feet of vert’ and nary a bit of bonk or heatstroke.

No Manly Points, though. I’m harsh but fair.

Speaking of which, when we finally hound the brigands out of the government and into prison cells or boneyards, I propose that we seize their fleet of 250 Cadillac Escalades in The Name of the People and use these bloated pimpmobiles to give hungry poor folks free lifts to the grocery. Not everyone has the bike and can make the climb, especially since the swine started croaking the bike lanes.

“DEI” me bollocks. If we’re talking about the bozos these land yachts are intended for it should stand for “Douchebags, Eejits, and Idlers.”

14 thoughts on “Take the highway that’s the best”

  1. The Doug Davis post on bicyclist interpretations of DEI was priceless, so I copied and pasted it into my own blog.
    Speaking of the Mother Road, great article in the Grey Lady about someone doing Rt. 66 on a vintage BMW. I did a miniature version when I retraced old NY 17 on one of my Hondas, way back in the day.

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  2. Rte 66 crosses I-40 right outside of Williams, AZ. There is a KOA right where it crosses the interstate. We used to camp there to mountain bike. Hundreds of miles of single track and Forest Service roads to ride right from the camoground. That include riding a dirt and cinder portion of 66 towards Flagstaff. We did past a petting zoo. On the return we stopped there, paid to get in, bought high price goat, lamb, and deer food, and sat with goats on a bench eating Cliff bars. I would do it again.

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    1. Man, I passed Williams and that KOA a jillion times, usually while motoring back and forth on Interbike bidness. Never did stop. Now I wish I had.

      You’ll recall that we owned a piece of property just off the Mother Road at Ash Fork, Arizona, “The Flagstone Capital of the World.” It was a red-sand, waterless preview of the Apocalypse inherited from my parents. Exactly why the old man bought it we will never know.

      And I’ve hit a lot of other burgs mentioned in “(Get Your Kicks) On Route 66” — Chicago, Saint Louie, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Gallup, Flagstaff, Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino, and L.A.

      Never visited Joplin, Missouri, though I lived briefly in Springfield during the summer of ’72 before hitching back to the B-burg by way of St. Louis, Des Moines, Iowa Falls, North Platte, and like that there. I was making some very poor life choices back then; your basic Jackoff Kerouac, without the poetry and girls.

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    2. Damn, I need an editor! That, or slow down a little in this high speed world we live in.
      Anyway, that petting zoo was your typical touristy kind of place. When we rode by it, we pretty much ignored it. But after about 10 miles or so, and seeing some a nice petroglyph site just off the road, we decided what the hell, let’s go back there for a break. We loved it. A goat climbed on the bench with us, and deer, lambs, and other goats were all around us. We fed them and us, and because we were in cycling kit, we were answering questions from other patrons and staff about our rides in the area. One great ride was from the campground South to the Dogtown Lake campground. Went through a huge meadow and watched three Border Collies working a large herd of sheep. The shepherd was whistling them from a hill on the side of the meadow. I also raced an Amtrak train slowing down to stop in Williams. A forest service dirt road paralleled the track for about a mile. The passengers were cheering me on. Great mountain biking memories is what!

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  4. Terribly sad about Glen Hansard. I only hope that perhaps his passing was quick and preferable in his mind to growing old and losing his touch of music. Perhaps his family and friends can be comforted with the thought that he offered the world a lot of the best of himself. One who touched many and will do so for many years.

    With the knowledge that a little cycling exercise makes the world of sadness a little easier to consider, I hope that you, POG and the others that show up here for the free brain juice, have been able to get out and spin your legs a little bit today. I’ve refrained myself today, because the winds have died down and where I am at (just north of the central Oregon wildfire complex) is encumbered with a little bit of stagnant wildfire smoke. It’s not really that bad but I thought I would take a rest day.

    Here’s another Hansard link courtesy of all the generous folks that support Public Radio:

    https://www.npr.org/2012/06/17/154947332/glen-hansard-tiny-desk-concert

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    1. Fires. They’re everywhere, seems like.

      Neighbors are visiting kin in Canada. All y’all know what’s happening up there. The fires that have been chasing Hal and Harrison around Colorado just won’t go out.

      A buddy who crossed the pond to visit some friends, follow Le Tour and ride a few classic climbs found himself chased around Spain and France by fires. When he got home, there was a fire there waiting for him.

      We have the usual collection of conflagrations. And you’ve got ’em too out in Oregon. Sheesh.

      We had a massive windstorm race through here last night and the sleeping was suboptimal. I hope Thor took a break from hammer-swinging. Though judging by the fire report we have a couple fresh starts thanks to lightning, so maybe not.

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