The lot was unremarkable — gravel scuffed and sunbaked, tucked behind a gas station in Santa Fe — but it held the kind of promise only the open road can. Two bikes leaned against a battered SUV, chainrings gleaming in the morning light. We checked the tires, cinched our bags, and passed around a final swig of cold coffee from a thermos that would stay behind. The air smelled like sage and juniper, dry and electric. It wasn’t just the beginning of a ride. It was the start of something wordless, baked deep into the red earth of New Mexico.
We weren’t here for records or routes mapped by cycling influencers. We came for something slower, older. A rhythm more spine than schedule — a conversation between body and landscape. From Santa Fe, we’d trace our way north through Abiquiú, detour to Ghost Ranch, push on to Taos, and then drop down along the Rio Grande. A loose loop, stitched by roads cracked with time and stories far older than asphalt.
Day One: Santa Fe to Abiquiú — Where Art Meets Earth
Leaving Santa Fe behind feels like exiting a gallery into a mural — every mile unwinds new colors. The city’s adobe calm gives way to scrub-dotted shoulders and far-off blue ridges. Cars pass rarely, and when they do, they wave.
About twenty miles in, just as we were settling into our cadence, we pulled off for a break in Chimayó. El Santuario rises humbly — whitewashed and silent, its wooden doors framed by simple carvings. Inside, pilgrims scoop sacred dirt with quiet hands. We didn’t linger long, but the air shifted after that — the kind of quiet that stays with you.
Lunch came from a no-name café in Española. Enchiladas drowned in both green and red chile — “Christmas,” the waitress called it with a wink. The spice curled around our mouths and lingered in our breath as we pedaled north, past rust-colored mesas and the first glimpse of cottonwoods hugging the Rio Chama.
Abiquiú arrived slow and golden. The land around it didn’t need filters or framing. You understood immediately why O’Keeffe never left. We found our campsite just past the bend — public land, flat and open, near enough to the water for a quick dip but far enough from any road to feel claimed. Dinner was simple: rice, canned green chile, and tortillas charred on a camp stove. Coyotes yipped in the distance, not quite threatening, more like a saxophone on the wind. Sleep came fast.
Day Two: Ghost Ranch Detour and Into the Backroads
The sun hadn’t cleared the mesa when we brewed coffee on a titanium stove, watching steam rise like incense. Ghost Ranch was close, so we took the detour. Bikes parked, we hiked a trail that zigzagged through rocks like watercolor swatches — blood orange, dusty rose, bone white. There were no crowds. Just wind and the echo of hawks overhead.
Back on the saddle, the road turned rougher — dirt and gravel, washboarded and wild. We threaded through dry arroyos and painted canyons, legs working like pistons. At a roadside stand near a church ruin, a kid sold lemonade made from prickly pear and limes. We bought two, sat in the shade of a broken bell tower, and traded silence for sips.
El Rito by dusk felt like a ghost breath — just a few homes, shadows long. We rolled into a piñon grove, pitched our tent beneath branches that smelled like sap and smoke. Dinner was beans straight from the can, tortillas warmed over coals, eaten while stars blinked on one by one. No phones. Just heat, quiet, and a sky so big it erased everything small.
Day Three: Into Taos — Culture, Cliffs, and Chile
We packed early. This day was meant to be the longest and most beautiful — the High Road to Taos. It didn’t disappoint. The climb was a pulse-check. Switchbacks rose and dropped like breath. Villages came and went: Truchas, Las Trampas. Each held something — a weaving shop here, a shrine with candles still burning there. In Truchas, we paused by a shed with a busted bike wheel hanging from a nail. A man inside offered to lube our chains. Said he used to ride until his knees gave up. We left with smoother pedaling and a story about a ride to Durango he swore was downhill both ways.
By midafternoon, Taos opened wide. We dropped our bags at a place just outside town — a riverfront campground with hammocks strung between cottonwoods. Bikes unburdened, we rolled into the plaza, sweat-streaked and sunburned, and found a food truck with tacos al pastor that dripped pineapple and chile oil. We sat on a stone bench near old women selling jewelry and kids drumming on overturned buckets.
Later, we walked the quiet paths of Taos Pueblo. Earth walls, shadows, smoke from an oven. No plaques. Just time, standing.
That night, someone mentioned Manby Hot Springs. We followed a dirt path by headlamp, bikes stashed near the gorge. The springs were shallow, steaming, river-fed. No lights, no fees. Just heat, rock, and the occasional hoot of an owl.
Day Four: Rio Grande Descent and Farewell
Downhill, finally. Legs grateful. We followed the Rio Grande south, tracing its shimmer through sage and sand. The road clung to cliffs in places, opened into fields in others. At the bridge near the gorge, we stopped, leaned over the rail, and watched a hawk glide on the thermals. No words. Just the wind.
Breakfast found us at a diner near Pilar. Vinyl booths, coffee strong, eggs real, chile hotter than seemed fair. The waitress pointed at our bikes and said, “Y’all heading to Santa Fe?” We nodded. She grinned. “Then you better eat up.”
The final stretch was gravel — slower, softer. The kind of trail where every bump talks to your wrists. But it gave us time to think. About the miles, the quiet, the people.
By the time we reached Española again, the bikes were dust-caked, our legs humming. Whether we returned to Santa Fe that night or not didn’t matter. The ride had already rooted itself somewhere deeper.
The Gear, the People, the Unexpected
Some things you pack for. Others you never see coming.
Like the old man in Las Trampas who gave us a cracked mirror “for seeing around corners.” Or the Pueblo woman in Taos who handed us a tamale wrapped in cloth, no charge, just “for the ride.”
Tubeless tires saved us twice. A solar charger kept the stove going for morning coffee. We learned to rig a clothesline between fenceposts and how to clean grit out of derailleurs with a toothbrush.
The best moment? Hard to choose. Maybe the sunset near Ghost Ranch — light pouring through clouds like stained glass, and all of us too stunned to keep pedaling. Or the dog that chased us for half a mile near El Rito, tail wagging like we were his lost pack.
Even the smallest things held meaning. One morning we passed a café with restaurant furniture out front — mismatched chairs, a weather-worn table, and a man drinking coffee alone, nodding as we rode by. It stayed with us. That quiet dignity. That sense of place.
New Mexico doesn’t hand you its heart. You earn it — mile by dusty mile. But when it opens, it doesn’t leave. It settles in your bones, behind your knees, in the gear oil on your fingers, and in the hunger you feel the next time you see red rock in the distance and know there’s only one way to really meet it: with wheels spinning, slow and honest.
