Weekend Cycling in Santa Fe

Travel, even a short distance, opens the mind. I took the Rail Runner up to Santa Fe this past weekend to bicycle some of the City Different’s many multi-use paths/trails and generally de-ABQ for a bit.

Having moved to New Mexico in 1993 and very early on dismissing the idea that I would ever live in Santa Fe, I’ve never warmed to the place, until this past weekend. I’d go up there in some transportation fashion, inevitably get lost, repeatedly, and relax only when I again saw the sign indicating I-25 Southbound could get me back to Burque.

And there’s plenty of Santa Fe to complain about, just as there is anywhere else. My jaunt up there this past weekend avoided a huge part of my typical complaining: I got nowhere near the Plaza and my SF enjoyment rocketed. Moreover, despite having lived nearby for over 30 years and cycling quite a bit pretty much throughout, I’d never been on the SF River Trail, or the unpaved stretch of the Rail Trail, or the Gail Ryba Trail (yep, there’s one there, too), or much of the Acequia Trail.

This has been quite the oversight.

In my defense, Santa Fe has most often been the place to take visiting relatives, etc. and has thus played a somewhat stressful role in my life, combining many things I don’t like and/or am not good at (e.g., serving as tour guide). Add in the fact that pretty much all of these visitors have wanted to see the Plaza over the unpaved portion of the Rail Trail, and there you have it.

This past weekend made up for much of what I’ve been missing, yet still left more to explore. Here’s a few snaps.

The weekend’s first trail starting at Swan Park near the NM-599 Rail Runner stop
The Santa Fe stretch of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro runs up through Las Campanas and down to the Santa Fe River here.
Here is said River. It runs through the urban area before stretching out into the open country south of town
Heading toward Eldorado on the unpaved portion of the Rail Trail. In case you’re wondering and have yet to ride it, the surface isn’t sandy/gravelly except in the base of an arroyo or two. My touring ebike with skinny-ish tires had no problem and the motor came in handy once or twice coming out of those arroyos.
The Spur Trail heads generally west and south from the Rail Trail for a few miles towards Santa Fe Community College and civilization.
Then there’s Arroyo Hondo Trail out in the hinterlands east of I-25. This trail will eventually go all the way to the NM-599 Rail Runner station.

I was having too much fun to take photos of other trails, including the quirky and enigmatic Acequia Trail. This one is a hodgepodge of standard multi-use path, residential streets, a short bridge or two over the Acequia Madre, and brilliant little paths between residences like this:

The bigger red box surrounds a little green sign informing “Railyard 1 1/2” with a very un-MUTCD white arrow pointing to something. The smaller red box surrounds a somewhat miniaturized stop sign. Hence, the trail goes under that Ponderosa.

This last photo alludes to what most opened my mind concerning Santa Fe cycling versus Albuquerque. Here in Burque, our bikeway system overwhelmingly assumes riders live here and know where they are going. I.e., there is very, very little wayfinding. Santa Fe’s system assumes you’re from out of town. Here’s another example:

Galisteo Road south of Saint Michaels

There are signs like the above all over town. I’d started out my trip depending on researched routing and a bike computer, but by my third day of riding yesterday, I generally just went sign-by-sign (in this case I turned right for the Rail Trail, one of these days I’ll take the Eldorado/Lamy option above).

Presence of these signs does more than help cycling folks along. Wayfinding helps cycling folks feel they are important members of the community. The lack of wayfinding in Albuquerque further engenders the vibe that we crazy cycling nerds are in some sort of secret club shunned by the broader community.

To pick just one example, ask any ABQ crazy cycling nerd what Rachel St SE has to do with getting from Four Hills to Singing Arrow and downhill to Southern. The nerd will nod their head in acknowledgement; 98% (make that 99%) of Burqueños would get that tilted dog head look and surmise the speaker must be using code words.

Rachel SE. If you know, you know, but you wouldn’t know from a sign because there ain’t one. Btw, your long-time ABQ crazy cycling nerd might reply “You’re wrong, dude, there IS a sign here. It’s the yellow bollards. THAT’S the sign.” A fair point in our crazy environment.

The thought has always crossed my mind that those in ABQ charge of deciding where signs go and such haven’t put signs up because they don’t want folks to know where to go. Because those folks can’t be trusted. Sure, the biggest argument against signs here is that they will be “defaced” by graffiti, etc., but I think it’s probably just as much, if not more, about concerns about where us crazy cycling nerds might go and what we might do once we get there.

Besides, tourists visiting Albuquerque aren’t going to bicycle here. Why the hell would they do that? They’d have to be crazy!

So I had a really good time visiting and cycling Santa Fe and environs this past weekend. I certainly plan to go back and recommend a cycling visit to anyone, especially if your prior memories about the place are all about the Plaza and squeamishly, nervously leading relatives around to “sites” you would normally never visit in a million years.

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