Day 10 - Las Vegas to Tucumcari (110 miles)

Today’s story is wind! When it is at your back it is a great thing. When we go outside the motel at 5:30 it was blowing. It is still blowing this afternoon. Fortunately, Tucumcari is East of Las Vegas and the winds were from the WSW. The winds blew at a steady 25 mph with gusts to 40. I rode much of the ride at over 20 mph, but on many small downhills I found myself going over 40 mph. I hit a maximum speed of 49 mph but several riders reported going as fast as 55. I is also a strange experience to top rollers at 20 mph and feel that you are really going slow, but after reaching 40+ mph on the downhill 20 mph seems slow. In general it was a glorious ride except for the few times when the road headed south and we had to fight a crosswind, in several places it was a real fight to keep the bike from going into the other lane.

My average speed for the first 100 miles was 20 mph. I slowed in Tucumcari because the route turned more toward the South and because of a few traffic lights. Tucumcari is on old Route 66. Today we crossed the route instead of riding along it. I think we will encounter it again in Oklahoma, but I am not sure. I didn’t see much to recommend Tucumcari, but our Best Western is nice. The road we rode on today, NM 104, is as deserted a highway as I can imagine. It has a good road surface and in a few places the surface is great. But over the 105 miles from the town limits of Las Vegas to the welcome to Tucumcari sign I was passed by 30 vehicles, 5 were America by Bicycle vans (1 passed me 4 times). So if I were to ride the route on some other day I might expect to be passed by one car every 4 miles. What more could a cyclist want, a sunny day with tailwinds, a good road, and no traffic. Well a down hill road would be nice. Today we lost about 2000 feet from start to finish, but also had 5000 feet of climbing. Still all things considered this was a great ride.

Last year when I did this day’s ride the winds were not as favorable I got in to the lunch stop 2 hours faster this year. I also recall having real problems at the end of the ride. There was a mesa that was always out in front of me and that it seemed I would never reach it. Today I saw the same mesa and in almost no time I had to turn my head to the side to see it. Oh what a difference a year and a tailwind can make.