On The Other Side Of The Hills
Monday, October 3rd, 2022
Up on Sandia Crest. From left that’s me, Dennis, Bill, and Bruce. That’s Albuquerque behind and below us.
After three nights in Espanola the OFMC, now augmented with Bruce, was ready to head out. Once again we weren’t going all that far so I had worked out a more roundabout route that was intended to keep us out of the metro mess of Albuquerque as we headed to Socorro. Going directly down I-25 that would have been only 160 miles. By the time we got there we had ridden about 280 miles.
First off there was no avoiding taking US 285 to Santa Fe and then we at least could avoid that busy town using the NM599 bypass. That brought us to I-25 and here’s where I missed a bet. We could have done a short jog over to NM14 and gone down through towns like Madrid, which is well known as the site of the “Wild Hogs” movie and is a nice route. But no, I had us routed down I-25 to Bernalillo and then east on NM165 so as to run to the east of the Sandia Mountains. Albuquerque is on the west of the hills.
The idea was to take NM165 to the road up to Sandia Crest, a view spot where all of Albuquerque and beyond are laid out below you. The problem was that NM165 is “unpaved and not maintained” from a few miles east of I-25 all the way up to where it meets the Sandia Crest road. We got to where the pavement ended and had to turn back.
Just beyond here NM165 turns to gravel. It would have been nice.
That meant we needed to ride down I-25 through Albuquerque and then turn east on I-40 to where we could approach Sandia Crest from the south–a big detour. So we did that and it was exactly the kind of thing you try to avoid but it got us there. We got off I-40 at Tijeras, NM14, and turned north. We then turned west onto NM536 to get up to the crest. Of course, this NM14 is the same one that comes down through Madrid so if I had looked at the map a little harder this could have been our route all along. But oh man, if only NM165 was paved I’m sure we would have loved it. If only I’d known it wasn’t paved.
Sandia Crest is a place you really ought to go. The road is terrific, very twisty and full of great views and then there’s the crest. The signs say the city is a mile below you and yes it is spectacular.
We headed back down and retraced our route to Tijeras and then crossed I-40 to continue south along the eastern side of that next row of hills that run south of the Sandias. This is NM337 and it curves its way up some hills, down through some canyons, and is just generally a very good road to ride. Highly recommended.
NM337 runs a long way down until it hits a T intersection with NM55. We turned west and followed NM55 all the way down to Mountainair, through which US 60 passes. Along the way we felt it wise to stop in Tajique at Ray’s One Stop gas and convenience store for gas. I had intended for us to fill up in Tijeras but there was no gas there. So, as Bill noted, we paid probably the highest price for gas in all of New Mexico at Ray’s just to play it safe.
We made it down to Mountainair and turned west on US 60. This was a pretty nice road for a ways but eventually became an arrow-straight run toward I-25. As we headed that way we could see the sky getting threatening. We needed to reach I-25 and take it just a few miles south to Socorro, but as we got nearer it looked for all the world like Socorro was at that moment getting clobbered in a downpour.
Up ahead it didn’t look a lot better. My thinking at that time was to get to the interstate and take shelter in a gas station. Bruce had other ideas. He looked at that wall of water ahead and pulled off to suit up. Dennis did the same. Bill and I rode on until the drops started falling. We were not going to make it to the highway. Dennis and Bruce caught up with us as we suited up and by the time we were rolling the sky had opened up. We rode through a deluge and when we reached I-25 there was no gas station, no buildings at all. So we pulled over in the underpass beneath the highway.
Gearing up to take off now that the rain is subsiding.
After a while the guys were thinking that it was time to ride. I thought they were a bit premature but didn’t say anything and we took off. They were right. The rain was barely coming down and soon stopped entirely. Then it was just a few miles to Socorro and we found our motel for the night. A long day but a good day.
Biker Quote for Today
You might be a Yuppie biker if you don’t ride in the rain.
