New Ride Report: Ranch Trails

[ridin gaijin]

Ever wanted to own a ranch out West, but didn't have the money or the shiny pointy cowboy boots? Waaa-aaalll, pardner, now you can see what one is like.



This ride occurred this morning with Arroyoshark from advrider acting as guide. He spends a ton of time up here and knows this place cold. "This place" is the guv'mint owned ranchland to the west of Santa Fe. There are trails up here for everyone, ranging from pretty decent dirt roads, to heavily rutted, dug up, muddy crap, to no raods at all. Here goes...



Arroyoshark met me at about 8:00 am. Weather clear and sunny, temp about 30F.







He has several bikes including a KTM 950, and chose his Transalp for this ride. That thing is pristine. It has like 30,000 miles on it, has been to the Arctic Circle (twice!) and looks practically new.







All right, enough of this Honda product. We left town in good order and started climbing. We were to keep ascending for 1.5 hours. At this point the trails were good.







Even a BMW could do this, right? Well--let's not get too relaxed. There were harder parts with baby heads and all but somehow I wasn't up to clambering off el tigre and photographing them--sorry.







This is the oldest power line in this part of the state. It was put in around 1978. JUST KIDDING! Actually, although New Mexico seems like a backwater, the Santa Fe power line dates from 1908. So there.







At some point I switched from the winter gloves to the Olympia Kevlars I use for summer. It wasn't that it got much warmer, but my hands were getting tired from the thick gloves.







Up this high you have views that just go on, with a big sky and mountains in any direction. We departed the track and went bumping around in the basalt lumps and wild horse poop. I scuffed up the handguards some on the cholla (pronounced CHOI-ya). Cholla is this horrible relative of the cactus that is covered with inch-long spines and is designed to break apart at the slightest touch to scatter its seeds or daughters wherever it can. We export cholla spines to Wisconsin for use in ice racing tires.







The country falls off pretty steeply but makes a good place for day hikes if you do not mind nose bleeds and altitude sickness.







Here I am coming up this little rubbly hill. Arroyoshark led the way pretty much the entire time and I was often so far behind that I'd find him in his folding aluminum lawn chair sipping hot coffee, checking out his e-mail on his laptop,  and waiting to take a picture.







Those of you who know my riding style will be pleasantly (I hope) surprised that, up to this point, I had not fallen off the bike even once.







Don't I look alert? Probably I am wondering where Arroyoshark went. Either that or I am on the lookout for stampeding cattle. There was only one small herd we spooked and nope--no time for a picture on that one either. They had right of way...







You find fences from time to time, demarcating Indian territory or BLM boundaries or what have you.







No tracks here, just basalt and cholla...







...and I still no gaijin spills. El tigre was possibly spooked by Arroyoshark's reports of tarantulas. Tarantulas? you say? But gaijin, Santa Fe is too high up and too cold for tarantulas, which commonly occur in the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts. Well, that's what I said too. But here's proof from the ever-ready digital camera of Arroyoshark. Spread your hand out flat on the table. That's how big the little cutie is.







And there you have the complete experience of owning your own little piece of the West.



Cold

Sun

Wide-open spaces

Bad roads

No roads

...aaaand tarantulas.



Oh yeah--also friends to show you around! Thanks Shark.

[Mudhen]

Awesome report, RG, thanks!  



I really needed that today...we're at 2' and counting right now...

[Dick Boyer]

Our weather isn't much better than N.H.s, so your ride report got the juices going. Thanks.

[Patrick the Scot]

RG - great report.  Awesome pictures. I think you just captured one of the reasons that I left Vermont for the West.  The great thing about the West is that with all the Government land out here, you really don't have to own much real estate other than a garage for you motorcycle; its all out there waiting on us.

[Patrick the Scot]

Awesome report, RG, thanks!  



I really needed that today...we're at 2' and counting right now...

Ummm, sorry about the snow. We ride motos year round here, but we never get the oppurtunity to crank up a properly powered snow machine to warp speed as you might.  I hope you've got a blazing fast two stroke to handle all that snow. ?