Ditches to Mesilla

My ambition for a while has been to ride the ditches to Mesilla, and today was the day. The general plan was to ride the main westside Mesilla Valley ditch to the Mesilla Dam and return via the main eastside ditch. All the major canals in this area have reasonably good truck paths running alongside them. The dirt paths get sandy in spots, but generally are easy to ride with a mountain bike.

I parked my truck at Gallegos Park on Bosque Road in Canutillo and started riding on the canal that runs north-south on the west side of the park. This is known as the Canutillo Canal. I followed it north and west. This becomes the La Union East Canal and it follows Westside Road. Westside Road (at least the paved part) ends at Washington Street in Anthony, but the canal keeps going north. About a mile or so later is the junction of the La Union East and West Canals (the La Union West will take you southwest through the valley). I kept going north. Just past Berino Road the canal -- I think at this point it is known as the West Side Canal -- crosses NM 28 and continues north on the west edge of the valley. One fascinating point of interest was an old "Drain Check Structure" that has a marker stating that "EBID (Elephant Butte Irrigation District) has preserved this site for its historic value." The purpose of the structure, the marker adds, was to slow down the water going through the canal.

The canal is blocked by a gate and no trespassing signs where the Stahmann Farms pecan orchards begin. Too bad -- this is the most scenic part of the canal. You get a great view of the "Black Mesa" just ahead to the northwest -- it's the edge of the volcanic field that continues west along the mesa. It got the name "Black Mesa" because of the volcanic rock.

At that point I decided not to press my luck by going around the fence, and doubled back on the canal to the first road going east. I hooked up to NM 28 and took the paved road to Mesilla and lunch at The Bean.

Then I headed west on Calle del Norte to pick up the river levee road as far as the Mesilla Diversion Dam. This is the main dam that diverts water from the Rio Grande into the West Side and East Side canals. The West Side canal (the much bigger of the two) is the one that also delivers water to the El Paso Upper Valley.

Today was the first day water was running in the Rio Grande, having been released a few days earlier from Elephant Butte and Caballo dams. But none of the water was being put into the canals just yet. Along my ride, however, several farms were pumping water from the ground to irrigate their crops.

I goofed at this point and took a smaller canal instead of the East Side Canal. The smaller canal followed the river then curved east. At Hwy 28 I turned north for about a mile to pick up the East Side Canal at Snow Road.

On Snow Road and a few other places along this ride, I "cheated" and rode on the pavement instead of the canal path. The canal follows Snow Road to NM 478, then continues running south along East Side Road, paralleling 478 most of the way. Eventually it runs along Three Saints Road until it hits O'Hara Road. At some point before I got to Three Saints, I biked through a pecan orchard that had a fenced entrance -- but the entrance gates were wide open and there were no "No Trespassing" signs, so I kept on going. Even if those gates were closed I probably would have just gone around them.

Just before Washington Street in Anthony, the canal ends, flowing back into the Rio Grande. I followed the levee road for about a mile and then picked up the paved River Trail that runs along the east side of the river for 2.5 miles until it hits Vinton Road (the River Trail then picks up again on the west side of the river and continues 10 more miles, ending just north of Country Club Road). I turned west on Vinton Road past the river, turned right on Bosque and returned to Gallegos Park.

Total distance for this ride was about 65 miles. It took me a little over 7 hours, including various stops and lunch along the way. On the way up, my only rest stop was at the Stahmann Farms store on NM 28. On the way back, I was getting a bit tired and dehydrated, so I stopped at a convenience store in Mesquite (about 1/4 mile west of the canal where it crosses Mesquite Road) and stopped again at Anthony Country Club (about 1/2 mile west of where the canal crosses O'Hara Road).

I'm glad I did this ride just to become more familiar with these routes. I would love to do this again, but in shorter segments. I only average 9-12 mph on the dirt paths. It's also a lot more fun to ride when the ditches are running with water -- which should begin in a week or two.

If you're interested in exploring the irrigation system between El Paso and Mesilla, make sure you have good thorn protection (slimed tubes, good tires, spare tubes, etc) and plenty of water and snacks. There are no convenience stores along the ditches! It also helps if you are familiar with the major roads crossing the canals, so you know where you can detour to get to a rest stop.

The payoff is riding without worrying about cars or trucks, seeing the cotton and chile fields and pecan orchards up close, and just exploring parts of the region you can't see any other way.

Mountain Biking El Paso

Lately I've been expanding my horizons, bicycling-wise, and trying out some of the Franklin Mountain trails on a used mountain bike I bought late last year.

I'm not going to go into particular trails in this post. The Borderland Mountain Bike Association has lots of information at http://bmba.wordpress.com/

I just want to post a few words of warning to fellow roadies, especially middle-aged ones like me, who aspire to go off-road.

The mountain trails around here are not for the faint of heart. I've been venturing out from where Redd Road ends, just past Helen of Troy, following the old jeep paths and single-track trails uphill toward Transmountain Road.

One of the trails ends with what is called "Ten Minutes of Hell," maybe 1,000 yards of pure, vicious rock surrounded by cactus that steeply ascends to a bluff next to Transmountain Road. In my case it was more like 15 or 20 minutes of hell since I had to walk quite a bit.

At least when I went out on my own, I tended to ride slow. The other day I asked a friend to show me some of his favorite trails. Of course they included TMOH. Just after we turned back to go downhill a further north on another trail, I fell and landed precariously atop a lechuguilla and prickly pear cactus. Fortunately I avoided catastophe and was able to pick out most of the cactus spines without much pain.

This kind of bicycling is a whole other sport. Road bicycling, except at a competitive level, actually doesn't require a lot of coordination. You sit on the bike and pedal. Mountain biking on trails like these requires a lot of coordination, great balance and reflexes, constant focus on the trail ahead, and tolerance for pain. While occasionally I will max out my heart rate on the road bike, I found myself consistently running out of juice climbing the steep sections of rocky road.

I'm not sure I will ever convert to mountain biking, but I hope to make it an occasional part of my cycling diet. If nothing else, it keeps me humble about road biking. Riding 20+ mph on the road is nothing compared to 5 mph on a rocky uphill trail.

Santa Teresa Time Trial

Every once in a while you need to work on speed. One way is interval training -- occasional blasts of speed during a ride. We did this a few times this year on the Tuesday night Beginner Intermediate Group (BIG) rides. We would ride on some low-traffic rides as a group and every so often go at maximum speed for 45-60 seconds.

Another way is to talk your friends into a time trial event. We did this on an El Paso Bicycle Club ride last Saturday. The ride offered two time trials -- a 2 1/2 mile climbing segment and a 10K flat segment.

We rode up to the intersection of Artcraft and McNutt Road (Artcraft actually is called something else at that point -- I think it's Pete Domenici Hwy. McNutt is also known as NM 273). There's an area just west of the intersection where we regrouped. Riders were sent off one by one at 30 second intervals for the 2 mile climb, with the finish line another 1/2 mile away. Most of us did this in 9-11 minutes.

Then we rode south on Artcraft (Pete Domenici) to Columbus Road (it's 2 1/2 miles south of the intersection with Airport Road. About 1/2 mile or so west on Columbus there's a start line marked on the roadway. The road also has 2.5K, 5K and 10K markings. We did another time trial to the 10K line, using the same procedure. It took most of us between just under 16 minutes to just under 18 minutes on this very flat course with very little traffic.

Afterwards, we rode back to Pete Domenici Hwy and rode to the border crossing to get a few more miles in.

For an unofficial time trial like this, the easiest way is to just let each rider keep track of his or her own time. If you get a volunteer with a car, you can have that person synchronize a stopwatch (most cell phones and iPods have that feature) with a volunteer at the start line. The volunteer in the car can drive ahead to the finish line and record when people finish. This also has the advantage that the car can carry any extra gear (water bottles, saddle bags, clothing) that riders want to dump to lighten their load on the time trial.

Doing something like this every so often helps monitor how you're doing as far as speed and encourages you to keep doing intervals occasionally on other rides.

The map below just shows the two time trial segments.

Ditch ride to Vinton

Ditch riding is a cross between road cycling and mountain biking. You ride a bit slower than on the road, but it's still offers a much smoother and consistent pace than riding mountain trails. There's also the advantage that the area's network of ditches offers miles and miles of traffic-free riding but you're always close to local roads in case you need a quicker way home.

On the first Sunday of October, three of us ventured out to Vinton via the Montoya, Canutillo and La Union East canals. We were lucky that this coincided with the last irrigation of the season, so the canals were running full. Riding along a canal brimming with water adds a special feel to the ride. We spotted ducks, egrets, a heron and roadrunner along the way.

We picked up a branch of the Montoya Canal at Country Club and the Rio Grande, and followed it to the Montoya Main at Montoya and Mulberry, then followed the main canal along Montoya until it met back up with the river levee. Between Artcraft and Borderland, the Montoya Canal goes underneath the river and joins the Canutillo Canal. We rode the levee road to Borderland, crossed the river and got on the Canutillo Canal just west of the river. From there, the canal runs north through farmland. North of FM 259 it enters the residential neighborhoods of Canutillo, passing by Canutillo Middle School and Gallegos Park.

The canal eventually merges with the La Union East canal, which travels through more farms and orchards. At South Vinton Road it was time to turn back, so we opted to take S. Vinton east to the river and ride the paved river trail back to Country Club.

This added up to a little over 20 miles, which takes nearly two hours. One of my goals is to do some segments along the canals going north, just to see if it's feasible to ride them all the way to Mesilla and beyond.

One word of caution about ditch riding: Make sure you are riding the most puncture-resistant tires you can get. At a couple of points we ran through weeds that covered our tires with goatheads. I had just changed the tubes on my bike to the thickest ones I could buy, and they held up well. One of my riding buddies ran out of luck with about a mile to go. It's a good idea to carry a patch kit, pump and extra tube in case of emergencies. Carry plenty of water, also -- it's a long way between places where you can refill a water bottle.

RIding across El Paso

I was asked recently to offer my favorite cross-town route in El Paso. This is a difficult ride no matter what the options, because we lack bike-friendly routes in many areas.
Since I live in the Upper Valley, I occasionally take the long way to the far East Side: Transmountain to Loop 375. This is about 30 miles and involves climbing. It's also not very practical for most West Side-East Side trips.
I've attached a map of my most common route to the East Side. I take Doniphan to West Paisano to Delta to North Loop to North Carolina to Yarbrough. The part of this ride that scares some people is West Paisano. The traffic is fast, but a bicycle is fairly visible as you're going toward Downtown. There are bike lanes/routes designated most of the rest of the ride.
If you're going from east to west, West Paisano is trickier because the street curves in such a way that makes bicyclists less visible. One suggestion is to cut up to Yandell through Sunset Heights and then enter Paisano from Yandell. This involves a steep climb as you go into Sunset Heights, but avoid some of the riskier traffic as Paisano leaves Downtown.
If you are coming from the West Side, there are no good routes. Mesa is the only option for much of the way. At Brentwood you can head over to Stanton and take Stanton to Downtown. Or you can take Executive Center to West Paisano then to Downtown.
Occasionally I've taken Montana from Downtown to the East Side. I don't like it much because there are so many stoplights and so many side streets. It's very easy for a car NOT to see you.
No matter which route you take, cross-town riding is not for the faint of heart. Be as visible as you can be. Use a rear-view mirror if you can.

Levee and Ditch Ride

If riding the levee road all the way from El Paso to Mesilla (see previous post) is a bit over the top, there are plenty of easy scenic rides along the local levee roads and irrigation ditches.

Recently (Sept. 6) I led a small group on an El Paso Bicycle Club-sponsored ride of about 13 miles that featured the levee road and ditches in the Upper Valley.

We started at River Run Plaza and rode over to the levee road that goes along the east side of the Rio Grande from Country Club Road. Note: You have the option of both the ditch road and the levee road at this point; the ditch road has better shade and slighter softer surface than the hard-packed gravelly dirt of the levee.

We turned east where the ditch heads towards Camino Real, then south on the ditch that dead-ends (with a fence barring the way) at the drainage ditch. Before we got to the dead-end, we turned east on Woodland, rode a block on pavement then continued south on the Montoya Drive ditch. Where Montoya hits Meadowlark, we jogged over to the canal that runs parallel to Portsmouth (not to be confused with the drainage ditch that runs slightly to the east of that canal). This branch of the Montoya canal took us back to the Rio Grande levee, where we kept going southeast until we hit the Sunland Park bridge.

At the bridge, you can cut down to the left across some vacant land and then ride the sidewalk a few blocks until you hit the main Montoya canal after crossing the drainage ditch and before you get to Emory Road.

The Montoya canal took us all the way past Mulberry to Montoya Drive, where we turned south then west on the lateral canal that begins where Mulberry intersects Montoya. This canal took us back to the Rio Grande, where we turned south and got back to Country Club Road and River Run Plaza.

This was intended just as an introduction to the levee/ditch network. Once you become familiar with the major elements, you should feel free to explore various ditches and see where they lead.

Ditch riding to me is pure enjoyment, free of the need for speed I feel on a road bike or the danger of crashing that deters me from technical mountain biking.

Here's a map to get you started.

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.