Slow Cycling: Boca Negra Canyon

Yesterday’s ride, or at least part of it, exceeded the general scope of “slow cycling” to the point of “walking 53 lb. ebike up a couple of hundred yards of that multi-use path running from Boca Negra Visitor Center up to Unser Blvd.”

And that was the most fun part of a very fun “ride.”

I’ve been forced to walk very heavy bicycles up steep hills in nearly everywhere I’ve bike toured so far (e.g., Germany, Poland, Portugal, Pennsylvania). Packed panniers a plenty, a few of those walks have involved wobbling and literal risk of being pinned by the bike on a very remote road of >10% grade. I can’t promise you I would have been laughing at the time such pinning occurred, but know I would certainly be laughing about it now.

Because bike touring is one of those truly wonderful experiences in which the very worst experiences end up being the most fondly remembered. The worst day on the bike in the middle of nowhere or, in my case, a ride through the flooded streets of Bordeaux, France while having absolutely ZERO idea which of the 76 bridges over the Garonne River allowed bicycles and riding to about half of these bridges while 18-wheelers (yes, we don’t usually associate genteel France with trailer trucks, but they got ’em) came within inches of running me over as the deluge continued and continued.

That was a really great day. Seriously.

Hard to make out how hard it’s raining in this photo, or that lake behind the cars is supposed to a roadway. Of course I took the snap originally as I was excited to see bike share in Bordeaux as I stood under an awning trying to wait out the rain until the tobacconist shooed me and a few other bedraggled people out from “his” awning.
Here’s the moment when I finally found the bridge accepting bicycles in a brief moment that it was also not deluging quite as much. So I took this photo with my, wait for it, camera. Because you see, I didn’t bring a phone on this tour because I didn’t have a phone in 2017. Not having a phone makes bike touring more fun. I swear. I also swear I’ve NEVER been able to talk anybody else into agreeing with me about this very plain and universal fact.
And here’s the bike-separated Mitterand Bridge illustrating continued deluging and presence of 18-wheelers, now a full jersey barrier and guard rail away.
And it was all to get here, the “piste Roger Lapébie” as I escaped Bordeaux and headed toward the Dordogne. Along the way, or, to be exact, after making my way to the evening’s gite, I discovered that “water repellant” panniers aren’t the same as “waterproof” in terms of what happens when your front panniers are submerged for 10-20 minutes on Bordeaux streets so flooded the deluge is running over the curbs on both sides.

Fastforwarding from 2017 to yesterday, I remembered that “terrible” day in Bordeaux and other touring days of mayhem and misadventure over the years as I trudged at 2 mph up Boca Negra Canyon.

Not quite a shot looking up the Canyon, but you can tell the weather and terrain yesterday weren’t very Bordeaux 2017-ish.
After “summitting” Boca Negra Canyon, I rode through the very new neighborhoods created west of there out toward the Volcanoes. Here’s a shot looking down from the highpoint of that newish multi-use path I call “Paseo de la Lunar Surface.”
One of the many current western edges of town that will, before too long, no longer be the edge of town.
And as now seem to be in photo essay mode, here’s a very un-Bordeaux Garonne River 2017 shot of our Rio Grande once-again looking full and proud in the Autumnal tableaux with not a 18-wheeler in sight (in large part due to my facing the River here and not the traffic on Montano Bridge).

The squiggly route for yesterday’s ride up Boca Negra and beyond from the River looked something like this:

Other highlights included a pleasant ramble through Mariposa Basin Park on a nearly deserted Wednesday morning and a slipshod almost-trotting dash south from Paseo de la Lunar Surface to the boundary fence of Petroglyph National Monument (note up and erratic back south to the dark green rectangle at routes left). Looking at the stats, my average speed for the ride squiggled above was 7.8 mph. I can assure you no part of it was more fun than the ~2 mph walking the heavy 53 lb. ebike up Boca Negra Canyon.

Almost as epilogue, let’s consider a question that you might have been having pretty much the entirety of reading this post. Namely, “Uh, Scot, doesn’t your ebike have a motor which could greatly help you ride instead of walk, with its assistance, up Boca Negra Canyon? Umm.., did you have the motor on and it’s just so steep it didn’t help or what?”

Long story involving pursuit of Squadrats tiles, but no, I didn’t have the motor on throughout the squiggles above. Thanks to the rules designed by those merry pranksters at Squadrats (ebike rides don’t count), I’ve had the extremely pleasurable epiphany that riding a 53 lb. ebike with the motor off is very, very similar to bicycle touring. Right down to walking the behemoth up steep hills. Not quite the swaying you get with four overstuffed panniers on front and bike wheels, but much/all of the grunting, the pushing, and the marvelous effect of slow cycling slower than ever.

Because the crux of bike touring is, for me at least, being forced to slow down and really see with time to also really consider what you’re seeing. Seeing the world at our now typical 75 mph, or in sightseeing lines at, say, the Louvre just ain’t the same. Not even close.

Nowhere and at no time more so than trudging at 2 mph up Boca Negra Canyon. That’s the best.

One thought on “Slow Cycling: Boca Negra Canyon”

  1. Based on this fine blog entry I decided to add a foray into Boca Negra to my Bosque/Atrisco/Chavez loop. It was so nice I decided to exit back up to Unser via the north MUP. The steepness of that made me consider the benefits of power assisted cycling. I shall not go over to the dark side, I shall not go over to the dark side, I do believe in Spooks, I do I do I do

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