Valles Caldera in the Jemez Mts

After our White Mesa and Ojito Wilderness excursion I asked my wife what she wanted to do tomorrow. "Something less athletic," was the immediate response. "Okay, give me an example," was my reply. So today we had reservations for an Archaeological tour in a van at the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains near Los Alamos. I have paid to ride my mountain bike on the preserve, but it never would have dawned on me to pay to ride around in a couple of vans with a dozen other people and a handful of tour guides. Despite the lack of strenuous exercise, I actually had a great time.

I have lived in New Mexico since 1972, and always had a strong curiosity about "Valle Grande." However, without any way to explore and learn about the region it has always been a huge mystery. Now based on today's tour I strongly recommend visiting it if you are in the area. The best way to do it at this time is to schedule a tour or event online. It is worth every penny of it, and hopefully the "Trust" will become financially solvent before the deadline in 2015. Otherwise, with inevitable budget cuts, then most, if not all, of these wonderful interpretive tours and events will disappear.



Valles Caldera is not part of the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), or any other governmental bureaucracy. Instead it is set up with a "Trust" management structure, and by 2015 must be self-supporting. They are struggling with the realization that they will not be funded by the government, but still report to the government. Thus the educational programs, hunting and fishing opportunities, and other events such as a marathon, as well as mountain biking, hiking, cross country skiing, and snowshoeing opportunities.

The GDMBR just brushes the northern border of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and there are many places between Polvadera Mesa and San Gregorio Reservoir in the Jemez Mountains that overlook the Valles Caldera area.





An obsidian "block."







Based on the terrain and the number of arrowheads with broken points found here, this area was probably used as a natural ambush area by hunters.







After a tough "van workout" a 30 minute soak at the Jemez (Hot) Springs Bath House was in order.



Definitely a positive calorie intake versus output day for us. With excellent food and service our stop at The Laughing Lizard Cafe was a great way to end our "less athletic" excursion to the Jemez (HAY-mez) Mountains.

Clouds

White Mesa

The trails are called "White Mesa Trails" because of the abundance of white gypsum, but a lot of colors are represented in the soils and rocks of this incredible mountain biking and hiking area about 35 miles from Albuquerque.



In the distance you can see the real "White Mesa."



Riding on the "Dragon's Back." The drops offs to either side were a couple hundred feet.









Cabezon Peak is in the distance.














"Land of Enchantment!"

Ride & Smile

Unless you are a Superhero, there are aspects of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route that will probably take you by surprise the first time through. Nevertheless, regardless of the amount of physical and mental preparation for racing, or even touring, equipment failure can still stop you anywhere along the route. I am not criticising, just reporting what happened to one well prepared Tour Divide (TD) racer a couple of days ago in northern New Mexico.

I don't know when TD racer Dominik Scherer from Germany first detected a serious problem with his rear wheel. From the TD blog it appears he may already have been in Abiquiu before he investigated the obvious warp that his rear wheel had acquired. The last 20 miles from El Rito to Abiquiu were on smooth pavement, and the previous few miles of Forest Service road were pretty mellow as well. He told me that he is a bicycle mechanic by trade in Germany, so I believe that he had some strong suspicions fairly quickly when he first noticed that his wheel was starting to "decapitate." In terms of a wheel, I did not know what "decapitate" meant. However, I do know a "tacoed" wheel when I see one.

After cleaning the adobe brick mud off the outside of the rim, and not finding any obvious dents or cracks I wondered whether he had overreacted? Perhaps I had made the late evening 105 mile (one way) trip from Albuquerque to Abiquiu unnecessarily? No, erase that thought. This guy is a bike mechanic, he knows what he is doing. Out of curiosity I removed the tire, tube, and plastic rim strip (all Schwalbe of course). I saw a layer of Scotch tape wrapped around the wheel covering the spoke holes to help stop water and debris from entering. In one short area the Scotch tape was peeled away. That is when I started to see the rim failure. I peeled away the rest of the tape and discovered that the rim was cracked continuously from spoke hole to spoke hole on the inside of the rim for about 3/4 of the way around the circumference. His wheel was ready to explode! A couple more good bumps or rocks and this wheel would have been history. In fairness to Salsa, he admitted that his rim was too light for the conditions.







I had just come in from working on a table my wife wanted built to go next to the outdoor grill. It was a little after 6 pm, and it was still in the mid-nineties. Sweaty, stinky, and hungry, but following the dictates of my recently acquired addiction to "blue dots" I wiggled the computer mouse and clicked on the Tour Divide Leaderboard. My eye caught the blog headlines in the right sidebar. There was something about a TD racer needing some help with a mechanical in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I thought that someone else a little further north had surely already come to his aide, but I gave him a call to be certain.

He said that his 29er rear wheel was "decapitated." I wasn't sure what that meant, but it sounded fatal. After determining what he needed I called up the only bicycle shop in Albuquerque that was still open - Performance Bicylces. (In retrospect REI was still open too, but I honestly do not think of them in terms of bicycle parts). Performance Bicycles did not have any 29er wheels. The only thing I had was a brand new 26 inch Sun Rhyno Lite machine built wheel. It is heavy, but once I tune them up they are very reliable. On my GDMBR tour I chose reliability over weight. I paid for that reliability on the uphills, but I was touring not racing.

There was no time to tune this brand new spare wheel. So, after several more precious minutes of discussion about his needs versus what I had on hand we settled on the rear wheel off my GDMBR bike. I needed to change out the rotor, but otherwise it was a "cut and paste" operation. He told me later that night that he had always wanted to try a 69er. It seemed to me to be a bad time to start experimenting, but this Frankenbike operation was more out of desperation than anything else. I think what he really liked were the fairly new Schwalbe Marathon XR tire and Schwalbe tube. I told him that this wheel, tire, tube, Kevlar Spin Skin liner, Stan's No-tube sealant, rotor, and cassette weighed a full 6 pounds. He responded, "I am a bicycle mechanic in Germany, and I know all these parts." "They are all very good." "Heavy - I don't care!"

Racing is largely mind over matter. That is to say: If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. This wheel climbs like a bulldozer. It descends like a runaway truck. It totally sucks in the sand, but it dances through the rock gardens. It shoots loose rocks out like a Winchester rife. Best of all, it knows the way to Antelope Wells, because it just came from there. Now you can "Ride and Smile" again. Good luck Dominik, and good luck to all the racers in both the TD and the GDR.