PACTour Day 17/19 - Truth or Consequences?

Today we rode mostly due south, from Socorro, NM to Truth or Consequences, NM.   ToC was originally named "Hot Springs" in fact we are staying in the Hot Springs Motel.  ToC took the name based on the then radio show host saying he would broadcast from the first town to name itself ToC.  The rest is history.

Truth or Consequences has special meaning to the Slauson Family due to this photo, taken nearly 10 years ago at the Tour of The Gila.  On the final stage, Jim had gotten dropped on the initial climb, but knew if he descended like a madman he could get back on for the ride across the valley.  A photographer was standing at the roadside and snapped this photo, entitled "For some racers, the Gila Monster truly was Truth of Consequences..."

Beautiful start to the day.

Again we rode along train tracks today.  Our am peleton started small, Lon leading the way, Lil hammering with Will and Ray keeping watch over the back.

Due to the slow speeds and headwinds of the day, our peleton quickly burgeoned going into the first rest stop.

Today we rode on a great secondary road, often near I-25.  We only had a 3 mile stretch of I-25 shoulder today.  Although our road was relatively rough chipseal, there was virtually no debris and Jim and Will experienced no flats and there were very few for the other riders also.

After the first rest stop, Jim and Will rode with Jon Jahant.  Jon is from San Antonio and is going to drive back to SA with the family on Sunday.  So the party continues...

Our wonderful ride today.  The keyword of the day was "rollers."  Little ups and downs all day.

Docile pace today.

Nice view of the support vehicle Armada, strategically placed for security and the next am setup.

Good view of the functionality of every inch of the vehicles and trailers supporting PAC Tour.

Today we were fortunate we didn't underestimate our adversary.  Although we rode short (80 miles) with little climbing (less than 3000 feet) and easy, the course was challenging, constantly up and down and the headwind was relentless.  Since we didn't go into it with a "this will be a piece of cake" attitude we did well and got thru the day nicely.

We broke the ride up nicely, riding with a fairly large group to the first rest stop at 20miles, then riding with Jon to the 2nd at 40 miles.   We rode alone to lunch, at 66 miles, maybe a mistake as the wind had really picked up and there were alot of rollers.  Arriving very hungry, Will had 2 homemade burritos.  The last 11 miles we rode with crewmember Karl, which really made the time pass nicely.

The road was perfect today, rolling, snaking and maybe a handful of cars passing us all day once outside our departure and destination towns.  Will and Jim were entertained for a long time by a local merchant, more on that tomorrow.  Nice dinner tonight - Green Chile enchiladas at a nice mexican restaurant.  Tomorrow we roll thru the mother land of Green Chile, Hatch, NM on our way to Las Cruces.

Tomorrow we hook up with Turk and Jaime - they cruise from SA at 0500, we won't even be up by then!!  80 mile ride, limited climbing.  We're tired, but the trip is nearly complete.

Thanx for joining us.