Tour Divide: New Mexico

Day 1: 123 miles - Antelope Wells to Silver City

Brutal start today! We got driven 2 hours, out to the Antelope Wells Mexico boarder crossing this morning by local shuttle driver, Juan. Another rider, Mike, was also starting today. We enjoyed chatting with him on the way down.

After taking some pictures at the start, Richard and I started strong with some fast pavement riding. It was 7:20am and still pretty cool. We made it to our first stop in Hachita quickly, giving us a false sense of confidence.

As we headed into the afternoon, things got hard. The heat, headwind and complete lack of shade was brutal! We filled up our bottles with ice at our second and final stop, which helped for the first hour or so, but as our bottles heated up we really started to question our decision to ride all the way back to Silver City (where our shuttle picked us up in the morning). In a moment of pure desperation, we took a siesta under the only shade we could find.

As we approached the evening, it got cooler and we started to feel better. It still felt challenging to make it all the way into town, but we did it! 😅

Jun 14 - 17: 0 miles - Rest Days in Silver City

Richard unfortunately, woke up the next morning with a fever and chills. The doctor was able to write him a couple of prescriptions that we’re hoping put him on the fast track for health. I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy. We’re planning to take a couple of rest days in Silver City, so he can rest up and get better. Hoping to be back out there and riding again soon 🤞

Jun 18: Pressing Pause on the Tour Divide

After hanging out in Silver City, New Mexico for almost 5 days, we started to realize that Richard was going to need more time to recover from the virus he picked up, before we could resume riding the Tour Divide. So we started putting alternative plans into place.

We booked flights from the very small Grants county airport to Boise, Idaho. The King Air we flew out of Silver City, was too small to fit our bikes, so we coordinated the shipping of our bikes with a local bike shop; Gila Hike and Bike. 

The plan is for us to spend the next 9 days at my parents’ house. We’re hoping this is enough time for Richard to regain his health and fitness. In the meantime, I’ll resume work for the week. If we’re both feeling healthy on June 27th (🤞), then my parents will drive us out to the Canadian border in Montana, where we’ll start riding the Divide southbound this time, on June 28th. 

It’s not what we originally planned, but if we’re able to get back out there on the trail again, I’ll be extremely happy. We’ve worked way too hard over the last 6 months to throw in the towel just yet. We feel so incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported this dream of ours and helped to make this pivot happen. We are fortunate to get a second chance at the Tour Divide this year. It’s my hope that with a little luck, we can be back down here in New Mexico in a little over a month, looking back on this challenging time as just a step in this longer journey.