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I was determined to take the Ducati on a couple of the roads up north on the last day of the holiday weekend. According to Google Maps, the route would be about 282 miles and take 7 hours 15 minutes to complete. I guessed that given my propensity to violate speed limits where it is safe and reasonable to do so I might shave some time off the estimate.
Click here to see the actual route.
Old Route 66 and I have become good friends, since I take it for the NM 14 Loop and to ride up to Santa Fe. Likewise NM 503 from Pojoacque to Chimayó is becoming quite familiar. The stretch to Peñasco, however, I had done only the one time on a motorcycle, though I had just driven it in a car two days before. Between Chimayó and Peñasco, the landscape changes from high canyons of dry scrubland to lush meadows separated by forests of pine.
Truchas is pretty much the frontier between the pines on the north and the pinkish mesas on the south. For some reason, the folks in Truchas saw fit to pour their garbage off the side of the hill for some number of years. From the village, twisties invite the rider pretty much all the way to Las Trampas. Las Trampas sits among a bunch of farms at the bottom of a canyon. Just past the village is a wooden flume carrying water. The old flume has recently been replaced with a new one, made of a hollowed out log.
From Peñasco, all directions provide excellent riding opportunities. To the east, one may follow the Rio Peñasco through some delightful high-speed twisties to Sipapù; to the west one may drop down to Dixon and its apple orchards. To the north, NM 518 rises to a pass among the pines and proceeds through a long series of twisties down into Ranchos de Taos, which sits at the town's southern edge. There are some high speed sweepers as the road flattens out and follows the river.
Once arrived in civilization, I followed the traffic leaving Taos down NM 68. NM 68 is usually too crowded for my taste, but the passing ability of the Ducati and my nerve to pass platoons of vehicles allowed me my most pleasant experience in the canyon. The Rio Grande is running high and brown during the run-off, and the canyon walls loom high above one set of gorgeous curves after another. At NM 75, I got off the bike to stretch.
Dixon is an old apple farming community in a canyon near the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Rio Peñasco. From Dixon, the road does some up and down twisties through the Picuris Pueblo. There are some dramatic canyons along the way as well. Since the gas station in Picuris was closed, I would have to refuel back in Pojoacque, on the other side of Las Trampas and Truchas.
I downed a bottle of water at the gas station in Pojoacque, and took another break under I-25 at the San Felipe Casino. All told, the mileage from Google was about right (I clocked 290 miles), but I covered the distance in about 5½ hours rather than the 7¼ estimated. Still plenty of time to the mow the weeds grass.
Posted by Underblog at May 28, 2008 6:16 AM
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