Don’t Hit That Rock
This is pretty kludgey but at least it made my mirror semi-functional.
From Socorro we did not have a long day’s ride ahead so we took our time leaving. This gave me time to go next door to the Ace Hardware and purchase a steel rod and some Gorilla Tape. With some luck and creativity I hoped to jerry-rig my busted left mirror so it would be at least semi-usable.
As it turned out, there was a small opening in the fairing of just the right size in just the right place to insert the rod. I taped it to the fairing and then lined the mirror up and taped it to the rod. It was ugly but at least functional. Plus, the Gorilla Tape is black so that blended better with the black fairing than some grey duct tape would have. Still, the only position I could get it in was too far out, so to see behind me I had to lean way to the left. If someone was passing me, though, I had a good view of them, so that’s a good thing.
We took off, headed west on US 60 for Alpine, Arizona. Along the way the plan was to stop and visit the Very Large Array (VLA), which is an installation of radio-telescopes just to the south of the highway about 50 miles west of Socorro.
Shortly before reaching the VLA there was a rest area and Dennis blazed ahead of me to make sure we stopped. I hadn’t planned to because we would stopping just ahead but what the heck, we’re in no hurry. Right where we parked there was a smashed watermelon on the ground as well as what must have been more than five pounds of totally black, mushy bananas. ??? This was dubbed the watermelon stop.
We spent about 45 minutes here because there was no hurry and the weather was nice and we had good shade. While here Bruce, who was now on his second day riding with the OFMC, asked why we cruised along so slow, generally about five miles per hour below the speed limit. I replied that in this case at least it was because we weren’t going far and there was no hurry so why go fast? He noted that he had never ridden with any group of bikers who didn’t just blast along as fast as reasonable. Welcome to the OFMC.
It was only about five miles from that rest area to the VLA but we had learned while stopped that it was not currently open to the public. Rats. I really wanted to see the place. It has a whole bunch of disks pointing to the skies and what I’ve heard is that you don’t realize the size until you’re up close to them. Then it’s an oh-my-god moment. So it was good that we stopped at the rest area.
The Very Large Array is much bigger than you think from a distance.
Still, there was a view area along the highway where you could view the array from a distance, so we pulled over. It was interesting from afar but I’m sure it was nothing like walking around right there. And by the way, I see on the web that they just reopened to the public on October 1.
Taking off from here we were ready to roll when Bruce got off his bike and removed his helmet. OK, what’s up? Turns out he left his lights on and apparently was needing a new battery, so that was all it took for the battery to die and the bike not to start. Dang. But Bruce had a jump starter in his gear so he dug that out. Then, being on an ST1300, he had to strip off a bunch of the body work to get to the battery to connect the jumper. He did, got it ready, it fired up instantly, and then he had to put it all back together. But we could roll.
In another 20 miles or so we reached Datil, where US 60 goes northwest while NM12 goes southwest. We stopped for lunch and Bruce made sure to park somewhere where he could roll downhill to start if need be.
Bruce had noticed that up ahead on US 60 the road goes through Pie Town, which is a small place known for what its name implies. Did we want to go that way and stop for pie? Plus, the map showed that on past Pie Town to Quemado there was a road heading south that intersects NM12 to put us back on course. This drew a strong yes but then there was bad news: Pie Town shops were closed on this day of the week. Darn. Back to Plan A.
So we took off and as we headed southwest the sky to the north, where we would have been if we had gone to Pie Town, was turning a very nasty shade of purple. We seemed to have dodged a bullet here.
As we rode along and reached NM32, the road coming down from Quemado, I recognized it as where we had turned north after coming the other direction on our last ride down in these parts. From there we retraced our route from that trip until we reached US 180, which we had taken up from Silver City that day. Now, at that intersection, we would be turning north, getting onto a stretch of road we had never ridden before. And we had managed to avoid rain all this way but now we would be heading right into it. Time to suit up.
We had no doubt we were going to get wet but Bruce remarked that it would be typical if we rode through just a bit of rain and then came out into that bit of blue sky we could see between two mountains. We pooh-poohed that idea but he turned out to be absolutely correct. It was raining when we were ready to ride and it quickly turned to a downpour. And then in just a few miles the rain started tapering off and soon there was no rain at all. Typical.
However. In the midst of the downpour, riding on this canyon road, there had been a large rock in the middle of our lane. A big one, maybe eight inches by five by four. Dennis saw it and steered around it. I saw it and steered around it. Bill only saw it at the last moment and did not steer around it. Big crunch. Big jolt. But he stayed up and all seemed well.
Nope, not going to keep the air in.
It didn’t take long to discover that the rock had bent his rim so that the tire couldn’t hold air. How it had managed to last till he rode 20 miles and got to our destination is a total mystery as well as a miracle. But there was no way he was going to be riding out of here.
Our hosts here at Escudilla Mountain Cabins, Greg and Shelly, did what they could to be helpful. Greg inflated the tire and we thought in the morning we could ride on to the next town and get a tube put in the tire. It went flat so quickly though that clearly that would not work. There was a towing service but they could not be there to pick the bike up till noon the next day. Of course the next day was to be the longest ride of our whole trip.
Later Greg suggested that they had a trailer and maybe Shelly would be willing to tow Bill to Eager, the next town. She had left and wouldn’t be back for awhile but he suggested Bill ask her then. When she was back and Bill asked Shelly seemed a bit put out at Greg for suggesting this because the trailer was way up in the hills and getting it and bringing it to Alpine would not exactly be a short, easy trip. Nope, we were going to be waiting for the tow truck the next day.
Biker Quote for Today
You know you’re a biker when you relate more to a dog hanging its head out of a passing car than you do to humans.
