~Thursday, November 12, 2020~
Day 151
Another disappointment due to COVID. We had plans to see the Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument (a must see in New Mexico), but it remains closed indefinitely. Ugh! 😟🙄. So we’ve decided to shift our bike ride on the Santa Fe Rail Trail from tomorrow to today.
But first-fixing another flat tire. As you may recall, we’ve had our share of flat tires between bikes and trucks (see Day 72 post while we were in Coeur d’Alene and Day 109 in Rabbit Valley, CO). My bike again and the same tire we fixed last time (the back one). And the back tires always take longer to change. We thought we got a really good tube from the last bike shop when we were in Idaho, but after Jeff picked up the new one today from The Broken Spoke, you could really tell a difference between the two (way better quality and thicker). A little delay but we soon got back in business.
The Santa Fe Rail Trail follows the old Atchinson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Line which stretches about 16 miles, 4 miles of which is paved.
Because of our time crunch, we decided to start at the South Capitol Trail Station and head south. A bit nippy out (about high 30’s), we rode through some scenic neighborhoods, over bridges and through parks. About an hour into the ride I noticed I had to work harder than I should need to, and not just because of the incline. Sure enough….another flat tire, but this time the front one.
There were quite a few shards of glass on the paved section that I noticed and tried to dodge around those, but obviously one got me. I guess it’s a good thing we had decided to turn around before that or we would have been further from the truck. I tried to ride it back for about 10 minutes with it flat, but thought we’d ruin the tire and it became too hard to pedal anyway, even in 1st gear. So as I waited, Jeff rode back to the truck and 30 minutes later, picked up the sad rider. 😢🚴♀️ What a bummer. We were really enjoying the ride. Another reason to come back to Santa Fe.
To wallow in our sadness, we stopped by a brewery we had seen on the trail….Second Street Brewery. With a nice juniper wood fire going and a few beer samples brought to our table, we quickly forgot about our bike sorrows. We sampled a new brew made with strawberries and rhubarb. Jeff was not a fan, but I liked it enough to order an 8 oz. glass. Jeff LOVED his Imperial IPA. With a 9% ABV, they put a 2 beer limit on it and only serve it in an 8 oz. glass.
Back at the “farm”, I made a delicious spinach salad made with hard-boiled egg, bacon, cranberries, caramelized onions, pumpkin seeds, tomatoes and homemade croutons. A nice accompaniment to our leftover French Onion Soup.