New Mexico is Awesome!

Yesterday was the best riding day of my entire life! We stayed overnight at a B&B in Kingston that cuts cyclists a deal. It was totally worth it. We debated staying outside but it got down to 26 degrees that night and they fed us very very well at the B&B. The breakfast was some of the best I have ever had and I can't remember ever eating that much either. Yesterday's ride included a 2,000 plus foot vertical climb in under eight miles. Very intense but also very fun. Awesome scenery and snow to check out the entire way up. Natalie pulled half way and I pulled the other half. There was an amazing lookout vista at the top (somewhere around 8200 feet). We had a snack up there and just were both in awe of the view. My pictures do not do it any sort of justice. We didn't want to leave but we knew we still had 40 miles to go until Silver City. We began our descent and tried to slow down our bikes on the way down because of all the tight switchbacks. We flew down the mountain and quickly cooled off. There were some rolling hills into Silver City which shattered our legs. A lot of climbing around here. We stayed with Carl last night in Pinos Altos. The street he lives on IS THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. So cool! Somewhere around 7100 feet of elevation and beautiful scenery. It is crazy around here. He is one of the organizers for the tour of the Gila. It is a very large, high quality race that is held right around silver city and pinos altos. Over the 5 day stage race they do close to 20,000 feet of climbing. It sounds very intense. Such names as Levi Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong show up to this race and it also boasts a pretty good international field as well. He was awesome to talk to about racing and riding in the area. He told us about a race called "Ride the Divide". This is a mountain bike race that follows the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. There is over 200,000 feet of climbing and the best guys finish in somewhere around 17 days. This is just insane. I have heard of hard races but absolutely nothing like this. This makes badwater, Ironman, Tour de France, etc. look easy in all seriousness. We watched the documentary with him and were just blown away. This guys are the gnarliest dudes on the planet in my opinion. Also, its unsupported, meaning they don't have anyone following them or providing them with water and food. They are all alone on this. Crazy! We went to an old western saloon last night for a beer that was built in 1865. The bar was really neat. He had an awesome dog that was a husky/chow mix and looked like a miniature bear. I didn't realize how much wildlife is in the area. He told us he sees black bears quite often and deer are everywhere. Just recently, one of his neighbors was killed by a mountain lion. Pretty scary stuff. He told us not to wander around at night. We definitely took his advice. Today we are taking a rest day. It was just a short ride to Silver City from Pinos Altos and it was all downhill. We are staying at another B&B that lets cyclists stay there for FREE! It is awesome how many cool places and people we have met on this ride. We are going to spend the day walking around and exploring this historic village. There is a really cool bike shop here and we need to stock up on groceries. It seems like a cool town. Its the largest establishment we have seen in a while. New Mexico is pretty small. Las Cruces is the second largest city at only around 90,000 people. I love this state so far. Weather has been good to us. Windy at times but not bad. Will be in AZ in two days probably. I will try and add pictures today too!

~Drew