Santa Fe Century Bike Race

This past weekend I went on a fifty mile ride through Santa Fe as a participant in the Santa Fe Century. My buddy Aaron Torres wanted to ride the 50 mile loop section. He's been training a lot up in Los Alamos with his friend Cody.

My buddy Aaron and I have been friends basically since our freshman year together at New Mexico Tech in Socorro. Down in Socorro, we would occasionally work out at the gym together. However, we always worked on computer science problems together. Aaron encouraged me to ride the 50 miles with him, and I did.

I left Albuquerque around 6:30 a.m. to make it to Santa Fe before 7:30. The entire race had the feeling of a carnival. I believe there were around 3,000 rides. My estimate is based on the highest rider number I saw, which was 2,900. There could have been more and I just missed them.

Getting all set to ride was very easy. The organizers were friendly and helpful.

There were bikes and bicyclists everywhere.

Cody

Aaron Torres

The University of New Mexico Computer Science Department gave me this shirt. I felt out of place not wearing spandex.


This was a welcomed sight.


This was at the first major rest area. It was in a nice little town called Galisteo.


The Ulrichs were quite the hospitable hosts in Galisteo. They were making food as quickly as possible keeping all the hungry bikers fed.

Quite the spread!

This was the only unpleasant portion of the ride. We were on the shoulder of Interstate 25.

Aaron's Parents at a Restaurant after the Race

My Buddy Aaron Torres

Aaron's Coworker Friend Cody and Mrs. Kaylee Torres - Aaron's Wife

I had a lot of fun and am very glad I did this ride with my friend. We paced with each other for all except maybe the last eight miles, in which Aaron pulled ahead of me to finish about 20 minutes sooner. All of his training in the mountains of Los Alamos paid off! I'm too used to my flat bike commute. My total time was about five minutes over four hours. Cody pulled ahead of us early, and finished almost an hour sooner than I did.

I still haven't decided if I will do the 65 mile Albuquerque ride with him or not, but I am leaning more towards doing it.