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RKPhoto Online These pages are being updated-Last change 3/27/07
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Tandems in the desert
We just returned from a trip out west to Lajitas, Texas for the Chihuahuan
Desert Challenge MTB race on February 14 through 17, 2001. I wrote this for a
group who consist predominantly of road tandem riders, but this does include a
road and a few tandems. We were traveling out west to ride our new offroad
tandem we gave ourselves for Christmas. More on all of that later. February and
March is a perfect time to travel to the desert. We had temps in the 70’s in
the daytime and in the 40’s at night. Most days we enjoyed a clear blue sky.
At the town of Lajitas, Texas you can cross the Rio Grande in a rowboat for a
dollar a head. No customs and none of those pesky INS people to bother with.
Every now and then someone in a pickup truck actually drives across the river or
rides across on horse back in the shallow area. Lajitas is said to be the
ultimate hideout. We met an electrician named Ronnie who lives in Mexico and
works in the Lajitas/Big Bend area and he told us that a while back a man who
has lived in the area for years wrecked his car and wound up in the hospital in
Alpine. When the hospital tried to make the prerequisite credit checks he was
found to be on the FBI’s wanted list. Ronnie said most people like himself
just moved there to get away from all the “nonsense” of big cities. I
personally think they have overshot their goal but that is just my opinion.
Some friends of ours with their off road tandem from Austin and about 18 other
folks on single MTB bikes joined us for an overnight trip into Mexico on
Thursday. We crossed the river with our bikes and rode 20 miles up to the town
of San Carlos. The road is a dirt road that at best is comparable to a very poor
jeep road in the US. San Carlos is about
2000 feet higher than Lajitas so even when the road looks flat it is a false
flat. It is 20 miles of uphill. There are also a couple of very long, steep
climbs. The Mexicans have hand laid concrete with cobblestones on the steep
climbs so that their trucks can make the climbs. Other than those two major
climbs the roads are sand and gravel with a constant washboard surface and loose
rocks. It's very hard to find a line. Thursday night we stayed at La Gloria’s
Bed and Breakfast in San Carlos. Gloria has what has to be described as an oasis
in the high desert. There is a spring fed creek that runs across her property
from out of a canyon. A short hike into the canyon reveals that the water is not
coming from under ground but rather drips from the over hangs in the cliff walls
of the canyon. Very interesting. She has a bunch of short hoses that she uses to
siphon water out of the creek to water her flowers and fruit trees. The
surrounding area is dry, brown and parched but her place is 25 acres of lush
green foliage. She and a few senior women from town (grandma types always cook
the best food) provide a huge supper and a great breakfast. This is not Tex Mex,
it’s the real thing and plenty of it. Most of the buildings in town are built
from adobe brick that comes from a brick maker on the edge of town. He hand
mixes mud, straw and who knows what else and pours it into molds in the mornings
and drops the bricks out of the molds the next day. He now also makes some
blocks out of concrete. What an improvement in building construction for this
century. The trip to San Carlos took 3 hours and 45 minutes. The trip back on
Friday took 1 hour and 45 minutes. Coming back was a nice fun ride although
Nancy thinks she has whiplash due to the constant wash board and rocks at 20
plus MPH at times. That’s a fun trip but not a good thing to do for two
days before a race. It didn’t seem to bother our friends
from Austin. They along with the other three tandem teams whipped us good on
Saturday’s 5 mile offroad time trial and Sunday’s 16 mile cross country
race. One of the other tandem teams started the time trial 1 minute behind us,
passed us at about mile 2 and then crashed twice and we still couldn’t catch
them. We were the most senior team competing but we have to work on that fitness
thing if we want to close the time gap. Our bike was said to look the best out
of all 5 tandems that showed up. I think that was because we were riding slow
enough that folks could see it. The cross-country course included about 2 miles
up stream in a dry riverbed. We rode through sand and gravel and had those rock
ledges that stepped up and down 2, 3 and 4 steps at a time. It really tested our
handling skills because we were hitting all of these things at speed. Every thing in the desert will poke you, bite you or sting you. We used the Slime Light tubes and still had two flats. One on the rear on the way to San Carlos and one on the front on the way back. Both times I aired up the tire and rode on immediately and the tubes are still holding. That’s a great endorsement for those tubes. We were lucky to not have a flat during the races. It would have only made things worse. Over all we are pretty happy with our first race on the tandem. We didn’t crash and we had no mechanical problems but our race turned into one of survival and just finishing the course. That’s not to say we didn’t have fun. We love this stuff. We just realized we weren’t about to catch any of those teams. The team that whipped all of us was riding an old rigid rental tandem they bought from a bike shop proving it’s not the bike it’s the motors. Much like riding a road tandem, we
constantly get high fives and waves from people when they see us on our offroad
tandem. I have always thought of riding our tandems with Nancy to be much like
dancing. This offroad contraption is even more so. We
each have an influence on the handling and speed. Myself as well as Nancy
leaning will steer the bike. In very tight single track she powers while I
feather the brakes and concentrate on negotiating the turns. Each team I talk to
has found different ways of working together but it requires a lot of
communication. As for the occasional crash I’ll quote some important points
made by Jack Tomkinson on the
Double Forte forum. “In case of crashes, the captain must always sustain the
larger wound, especially if he is married to the stoker. If you must trip while
getting up to bring your injuries up to par, do it. Even if she accuses you of
faking it, blood and torn flesh do not lie. They show your commitment to your
spouse on whatever level.” Still digging the dust out, Robert and Nancy Kaechler |