Levee Road to Las Cruces

For some crazy reason, I decided to try riding the levee road all the way from Country Club Road to Las Cruces. The good news is that it is doable. I rode my 1988 Miyata 1000, a touring bike that has good all-purpose (32mm) tires. Any mountain bike, hybrid or cyclocross would be fine, but don't try this with a standard road bike.

I tried following the River Trail at the beginning, but there was too much water and mud covering portions of it.

The bad news was that the levee between O'Hara Road and Mesquite Road was having improvement done (they're raising the level of the levee like they did in El Paso's Upper Valley), so at times the road itself was very hard to ride on due to a soft surface from the new dirt. But there was almost always a hard-packed surface below the levee on the river side that was ridable.

It's slow going -- I averaged about 11 mph. It didn't seem so bad because it was all new to me. The view isn't all that great -- lots of weeds and salt cedar. But there's something about being all alone near the river that makes it fun.

The highlight was the area around Mesilla -- north of Hwy 28 and south of Calle del Norte. There's a large diversion dam that feeds the two major canals irrigating the Mesilla Valley. And the river runs near the west mesa so there is more to see.

If you do this ride, make sure you are well prepared with lots of water, snacks and spare tube, etc. If you get stuck, you could end up doing a lot of walking.

I rode back via NM 28. The map below shows the route I should have taken. In fact, I got a little confused and rode down Snow Road all the way back to 28 and had to ride 4 miles back to Mesilla so I could eat lunch at The Bean. The map shows a 71-mile ride. I clocked in 83 miles due to my 8-mile mistake plus the 4 miles to and from my house to the starting point shown (River Run Plaza).

You probably won't do this ride often, or if you do, you may want to try just part of it. But it's worth it just to get off the pavement and enjoy the freedom a bicycle provides.