Hi its Alan, its 10 to 2 on Friday the 4th of July. I’m in Grants with Dominik, Leighton and Adrian. We set out from Cuba last night about 5 and carried on until about 10 and camped just by the road in a ditch somewhere about Pueblo Pintado or something. It was actually a very good nights sleep. My alarm went off at 4, but didn’t hear that. Slept through till 5:00, 5:30. So we traveled across here this morning. We just had pizza. I shared a pizza with Adrian. He wanted to do that. For someone who doesn’t normally eat it, he is very good at that. Now we are heading off on the second alternate, down to Pie Town. I’m not sure we’ll make Pie Town today. Its pretty hot now. But we’ll give it a shot. I guess Ardie’s finished by now too. Good luck to him. I guess we might be seeing the film crew on the way back up here. The Four Amigos heading south. Okay, Bye.
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 14:52:23 EST)
Hey everybody, Leighton White here, in Grants, NM. Riding with the United Nations Team. Adrian, Alan, Dominik and I have all met back up again. We are in Grants. Hopefully we will finish one of these days soon. A little hot. Other than that everybody is doing good. Hopefully we’ll see ya’ll soon. Bye.
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 14:48:19 EST)
Hi this is Felix Wong calling at 12:11 from the town of Chama, NM. Its about 50 miles off route. I'm calling on the 4th of July. I am in much better spirits. When I got to Chama, I encountered a cyclist and I ask her if she knew any cyclists in town with a cyclometer I could buy off him or her. She led me into a little office that is under construction. A construction worker just upgraded to a GPS on his bike and he had a Cat Eye Cyclometer at home in his garage just 2 blocks away. So he went to fetch that for me and I just mounted it and it seems to work fine. It looks like I'm going to be good to go in terms of navigation. I just have to climb back up a huge pass which I had to descend to get into Chama. That's going to take at least 2 hours to ascend, until I'm back on route, but at least I'm going to on route and I should be heading down through New Mexico shortly. Right now, I'm enjoying a cup of ice cream. I got rocky road which I thought was appropriate. It certainly has been a rocky road, especially the past couple of days for me. Anyhow, talk to you later. Bye.
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 13:14:40 EST)
This is Ardie Olson calling in from Silver City, NM. It is Friday, June 4th (July). It is 11:23 AM. Everything is going good. Got rained on pretty hard last night. Had a thunderstorm hit me before I got into Mimbres. But I didn't quite make it into Mimbres last night, But I got up early this morning, made it in to Mimbres and got me a good breakfast and booked it into Silver City. Going to get me some resupplies here and head for the border. Get a little splash of gas and 2 right side tires and I'll be ready to go. Oops, that is the wrong race. How about I just stop at the Shop N' Go here and get me some caffeine and a couple honey buns for the road, that is about what it is going to take. Looking forward to the finish. Hope everybody else is doing well that is out there. Again, this is Ardie Olson
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 12:25:53 EST)
Hi this is Felix Wong calling on the 4th of July. Its Friday, 10:20. I’m couple of miles from the New Mexico Border. Every holiday it seems like I have some sort of vehicular problem and this is no exception. I had my second crisis. Last night my cyclometer died. I think it has something to do with the sensor, I’m not sure if it is the sensor itself or the sensor battery. It doesn’t really matter because the sensor battery is a very rare 12 volt double A battery. One that I’m not going to be able to find anywhere. Right now I’m heading off to Chama. I’m going to look for a cyclometer. What I have been doing for the last 12 hours or so, I was going from campsite to campsite asking people in RVs if they have a cyclometer on their bicycles. Had no luck there. Then one of the locals me that he sees cyclists biking up Highway 17 a lot. So I actually did wait at the corner of Highway 17 and Forest Service Road 117, which is the road that I’m suppose to go on next to New Mexico. I waited for about 3 hours, no cyclists. So I’m heading down to Chama. (can’t make out next 2 sentences) To see if there is any cyclist with a cycometer. Cyclometer is (can’t make out rest of sentence). Even with a functional one, I get 1-4 miles lost each day. The next supply point for me is El Rito which is about 100 miles away. If I get lost in the forest, it’s a bad, life and death situation. I need to take care of this problem and hopefully I’ll find something in Chama. If you don’t hear from me in the next day and half or so, and it seems like I’m back on course and it means found a cyclometer. If you hear back for me in the next day or so, we’ll see, I will let you know what is going on. But that is the situation right now and I’ll talk to you later. Bye.
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 11:25:18 EST)
Hello Steve Gleasner calling from Absolute Bikes. I did not depart at 10 o’clock. I’m still here. It is after 10. That little interruption by the mechanic was saying that my rear wheel is splitting in half so I’m replacing that. That’s the gist of it..
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 11:13:40 EST)
Morning, Steve Gleasner calling from Absolute Bikes in Salida, CO. My bike is on the stand and Absolute is giving it to her. They are putting new rubber on the back and fleshing up the new brakes. I should be out about 10 or so. I can’t say enough about the people here. They get right on it. They make a priority out of these crazy people that come in all sketched out. Noah Dimit (sp) is also here. He is having work done on his bike. So we have dueling bike stands going on here. Yesterday was great going over the Pass from Breckenridge. I had a wonderful time on the climb. I felt like Superman and on the downhill side it was great as well. (I’m on recording. That was the Absolute Bike guy.) Then the rest of the day was all sand and washboard out in the desert with lightening storms chasing me. There it is, down the Road. See ya.
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 10:56:31 EST)
Hey its Mary Collier. Its about 8 in the morning, July 4th. I'm in Sargents, CO. I made it last night about 9:30. Last couple days have been pretty awesome. Two nights ago, I stayed in a children's playhouse in Harstel, CO. Pulling Boreas Pass to get to Harstel actually was not that bad. Got in pretty early to Harstel. I was sleep deprived enough and homesick enough that I decided to stay in Hartsel after not covering too many miles, but I’m happy to live with that decision. I woke up early in the morning from Harstel and headed out towards Salida. Made it to Salida yesterday. Had my bike worked on at Absolute. Changed out my tires. Really just did a look over, my bike is actually looking pretty good. Everything is going well. It was late in the day when I came into Salida, but I decided to go ahead, up over Marshall Pass in get into Sargents. I got here at about 9:30 last night. It was raining a little bit, dark and cold. They were out of cabins so they hooked me up in a Tee Pee last night with a campfire looking propane heater in the middle of it. Pretty rad. I never slept in a Tee Pee before so it was pretty cool. The last couple of days have been pretty cool. Coming into Salida. I met up with a good friend, Canon. He rode up Marshall Pass to greet me and rode down with me...having worried that I had been homesick and lonely. It was really good to hear from, see him and have someone to ride with and chat with. When I got to Salida, my twin sister, Julie and her kids were there and greeted me. Made me feel like a Rock Star. Pretty good. That gave me a lot of energy to best up and over Marshall Pass to get here to Sargents. Had a good nights sleep last night and I'm headed out on the road to get to Del Norte tonight. Have a Happy 4th of July. Bye, Bye.
(recorder time: 2008-07-04 09:20:45 EST)
Hello this is Adrian Stingacui. It July 3rd 9:10 pm calling in from Pueblo Pintado on the Chaco Alternate. Last night I caught up with Leighton White, Alan Goldsmith and Dominik Scherer in the motel in Abiquiu. Crashed their party around 10:30 p.m. Dominik had some wheel issues but he got those resolved. We are all rolling out today. We all started at the same time this morning around 5 am and rode a little together then we kind of got split up. then we stopped in Cuba. We regrouped again on the Chaco alternate. We've been riding off into the sunset. Beautiful day today. Several local thunderstorms. Just a really beautiful day. We just stopped to get something to eat and we are going to press on into the night and see if we can finish sometime on Sunday. Who knows we might even all finish together. It has been really nice riding with Alan, Leighton and Dominik. It just makes all of the pain go away. You forget about the mileage, you forget about everything. You are just out here having fun with friends riding your bike. Its what its all about. Its just really nice riding together and we've become really good friends out here. Good night everyone. All my love to family and friends back home.
(recorder time: 2008-07-03 22:13:33 EST)
Hello this is Dominik Scherer, calling on Thursday, 3rd of July. Its 4:30 pm. I’m here in Grants, no not Grants, just before, Cuba, NM, that’s he place. I wanted to call in to thank Bob Morgan from Albuquerque. He is he man. He brought me his own personal 26” rear wheel yesterday evening. He drove all the way from Albuquerque to Abiquiu and brought me his wheel. So I have his 26” wheel now in the rear. It made it very very well over these last few hills we had to do this morning. Thank you very much Bob. This is so very, very good. Thank you. We just had some food, Alan and me and we are stocking up on supplies and we’ll be on our way towards Grants in the next half-hour or something. We did sort of lose Adrian and Leighton on the climbs. We started out together this morning. We sort of lost them. But I think we’ll meet again on the way. That is what I hope for that we will see them again. All you people out there be good, be safe. You people at home, I’m almost through. It is good to know that you are there. You are giving me strength every day. Thank you. Bye.
(recorder time: 2008-07-03 17:34:13 EST)
