The wind had not died down by morning. When the camp host came over to say hi while I was having breakfast, he warned me that it would be even windier today than it had been yesterday. Wow. Playing it safe, I took the bike off the roof so I wouldn’t have to worry about it flying away on me.
I drove west on another straight highway to El Paso. Thankfully the wind wasn’t too bad, but when I got to El Paso, it got worse. I wasn’t going into the city, but instead into the Franklin Mountains north of downtown where Trailforks had told me about some mountain biking trails. I’d been itching for some two wheel action for a while, it had been weeks! I drove through a pass in the valley of the mountains before reaching the park. At the entrance, I found the trails were in a state park so they were asking a $5 entry fee. Bugger that. I went back to the entrance and parked next to another car just outside the park. Screw your fee.
The poor Giant needed some attention and some new bling! The new tyre went on, I adjusted my derailleur which had lost about a third of its tension, I attacked the chain with WD-40 to try get rid of the surface rust and I adjusted the brakes as best I could to allow the discs to spin freely. As I was doing all this, the owner of the nearby car arrived having finished his trail run. He let out a “Whoop!” as he got back, obviously happy with his morning! I hoped I would have the same feeling after my ride.
I made sure I did all my preparations sheltered behind the van so I could be out of the wind as much as possible. Once I got my wheels rolling though, there was no hiding from it. I took a trail under the highway and into the desert. The wind was enough to knock me around while I was trying to keep my rubber on the narrow trails. The penalty would be high considering the density of cactus that lined the singletrack. I navigated as best I could to a black trail and was disappointed it was just like the blue trails I’d ridden to get there. The going was rocky, but it was nice terrain. I was impressed with my climbing skills considering all the time off I’d had, but became frustrated when the wind started pushing against me more and more. I ended up taking a different way that I wanted to and ended up doing a small loop. At this point, I considered turning back because the wind was such a hassle. I couldn’t spit without getting wet. Everything was covered in a haze from the dust that was being blow up. I could feel the sand between my teeth.
It had only been forty minutes so I carried on, aiming for a trail that had been highly rated, La Espina Ledge. Again, due to lack of any signage, I didn’t exactly take my planned route there, but I enjoyed some good, techy climbs. When I finally made it to La Espina, I discovered that Trailforks had suggested the wrong direction. I was climbing up stuff that looked and felt like it would be fun to go down on. It was a pretty cool trail, literally a ledge next to some person-high rocks that would push you over into a cactus mountain-side in an instant. When I reached the top and saw that the path down didn’t look all that interesting, I turned around and went down the way I came. This is where it all started to go wrong.
Finally, back on the right trail, I managed to kick a cactus with my foot attached to my pedal. Ow! I ignored it and rode on, I wasn’t going to stuff around with it now. I had to stop one more time to re-pump. This time, I had no luck, the slow leak had turned into a fast one. Another swear word. Nothing left to do but walk. Every other step hurt when I felt the cactus spike in my foot. When I finally got back to the car, I was not in the greatest mood, but I decided I’d replace the front tube now to save me the trouble later. I got out a tube I’d patched before and in the time it took me to go round the car to get tyre levers, I found it was no good. ARGHHH! Fine, I had one brand new tube left and it went on. I pumped the rear up to proper riding pressure too, then put the bike on the roof.
Filthy dirty, I parked a van in a direction to minimise wind and had a cold shower in my underwear, knowing that my privacy screens wouldn’t stand a chance against the howling gales. It wasn’t the easiest of showers, but I got myself clean. Happy that my ordeal was over, I got straight onto the highway, keen to get far away from El Paso. After about twenty minutes, the wind got even stronger so I pulled over to take the bike off. There’s no way my $99 roof rack was built to stand 60 mph cross winds. I managed to do that without any mishaps.
I spent the rest of the day driving north, back into New Mexico where I was heading for more parks. I stopped briefly at a servo to have some noodles for a late lunch, then carried on. It soon became obvious I wasn’t going to make my intended camp in the Gilla Wilderness, so I decided to have another paid night at City of Rocks State Park. The name made it sound like an interesting place and so it was. I turned off the highway and nestled in a valley that made the place completely invisible from the outside, was a dense collection of boulders sitting in the desert. It was beautiful, made me go, “Wow”.
I paid my $10 at the self-register station then drove around the rocks to find a site. It was pretty busy, but all the sites were well spread out and I eventually found myself one at the end of a short driveway that would put most RV’ers off. I spent the next half hour wondering the rocks as the sun set, finding myself some sweet little boulder/caving problems. I took heaps of photos then found a rock to perch myself atop while the sun set behind the mountains. The wind was still relentless, but at least here it wasn’t quite gale force. I was happy to have a steel box around me, instead of a flimsy tent.
