2026 route 66

 Today was pretty simple ride from Las Vegas to Santa Rosa -- 43 miles on a nice downhill road, followed by 20 miles on a dirt portion of Route 66 (needed to duck a fence to get to it), followed by 5 downhill miles on I40, and then into town.  Even getting another flat and a half didn't put a damper on things (the 1/2 is that after changing my flat, it seems that I had a slow leak (which we still can't find) so I call it a 1/2 because we dealt with it at a rest stop before it was a full flat).  According to Garmin, we are acclimated to 5600+ feet of altitude and we are now at 4370.  You can really feel the difference in effort you can put out as we are getting lower.  The weather was similar to yesterday but when the winds picked up they were mostly tailwinds. We left Las Vegas riding with the owner of the hotel we stayed at.  He didn't hold us back to say the least.   The 20 miles on the dirt road felt like riding through a painting -- picturesqu...

Day 16 from Santa Fe to Las Vegas NM was relatively calm, except for the wind.  It was helpful for the first 55 miles but was a cross wind for the last 15. I think they said it was 20+ miles with gusts to 40.  We lost 600 feet of altitude on the day, and also hit the highest elevation for the trip (7550 feet).  There was no gravel or sand, nice pavement, no fences to climb, only 8 cattle grates, and only only 5 miles on I25.  We were on the Santa Fe Trail for a while.  The scenery included more trees, and the temperatures were similar to yesterday (mid 50s to low 80s).  About 260 miles to go... The excitement for the day (besides for the cross wind) was there was a wire in my derailleur jockey pulley. (pictures below) I don't know how long it has been there but we needed to remove the pulley to get it out.  Lucky we were with Lou who attacked it like he has done this many times before. We passed through Pecos National Historic Park.  It contains a...