Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
New Adventures With Old Gear in Santa Fe
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Seeking a two wheeled spring break adventure, Cass and his son Sage return to New Mexico after a number of years away, to reacquaint themselves with the city’s bike paths and spend a night under enchanting skies. Read on for a story about a family campout on the Caja del Rio, and a visit to an emporium of preloved outdoor gear that is sure to delight both parents and children alike…
Over the last decade, I’ve regularly shared adventures with my son, challenging myself to capture their spirit with words and pictures, and create journals of sorts for our future selves to look back upon. Now that Sage is eleven, these trips are becoming more cyclical, allowing him to enjoy the same places through the perspective of different ages, from being pulled along in a trailer as a toddler to riding a bike loaded with all his own gear!
Last November, for instance, we met up on the doorstep of a Rockies’ winter and chanced our fortunes in Salida, Colorado. Our plan? To re-ride a route along Aspen Ridge that we first tackled when Sage was just three. Back then, we were joined by friends from Ecuador and their two children, and collectively we hauled our extended cycling entourage, including trailers of all shapes and sizes, baby slings, and more. Eight years on, Sage was now at the helm of his own bike, a Surly Bridge Club that I’d bought for his recent birthday, and this time around, it would just be the two of us. To our amazement, we pulled off the adventure despite a climb that wound on far longer than I recalled and the unexpected vagaries of a snowstorm, inspiring me to write about our white canvas experience in the latest edition of the Bikepacking Journal, which is out now.
Whenever we see each other, I try my best to make the most of our time together. My formula is a simple one. We aim to strike a balance between forging strong and meaningful experiences that linger with us in mind and body, without forgoing downtime to relax together too. Given the extremes of the last trip, it seemed wise to ensure our spring break outing would be officially free of icicle fingers, an unfortunate detail from November’s ride. So where to, I wondered?
Although Sage now lives in Colorado, he grew up in neighbouring New Mexico and the bond I feel towards the state is especially significant for this reason. A seven-hour bus ride away from Denver, and warmer by relative standards, a return to the Land of Enchantment for his school holiday made logistical sense, in part because I’m fortunate to have a network of wonderful and supportive friends who live there. Heading for Santa Fe, where we used to live, would also allow us the opportunity to wander – and cycle – down memory lane. I imagined a week frequenting our favourite eateries, or whiling away afternoons in the parks he used to play in, even if this time, I expected he’d be racing around with his remote control car rather than chasing friends up, over, and through the jungle gym.
And, instead of building up to a grand, multi-day adventure as is our usual MO, we decided that we’d content ourselves with enjoying our bikes as transportation. We’d ride the capital’s fabulous bike paths to visit friends, or hike the local trails. We’d remain open-minded to the notion of an overnighter, should the wavering weather look favourably upon us, but let the days unfold without obligation. After all, I’ve always loved roaming the city on my bike with Sage by my side, stopping to rockhound or picnic, or race each other until we were out of breath. Plus, we’d have access to the e-cargo bike I once used to take him to school – nicknamed the Bici Burro – allowing us to maintain the immersive feel of bicycling throughout the week.
Yes, the more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed. Human-powered undertakings would wake us up in the morning, be it on foot or two wheels, and pedal assist would be saved for the afternoon and evening, to temper the blustery springtime weather for which New Mexico is known, and aid with navigating city traffic. Hailing from the UK, where there are more than 170 drizzly days a year, I’ve always wondered why such a compact city isn’t teeming with bicycle commuters, given its glorious 300 blue bird days per annum. Bike paths criss-cross town, the terrain is mostly flat, and sagebrush and juniper-lined arroyos form as enchanting a backdrop as anyone could hope for. Sure, there are certain roads to avoid, where a bazillion cars jostle for place and shoulder-high trucks roar by, as well as awkward intersections that are frustrating and even dangerous to negotiate, especially with a child. But in the broader scheme of things, and especially within the context of metropolitan riding in the US, life is pretty diggity dang good for those who take to two wheels!
Suffice to say that our week back in New Mexico proved to offer just the warm and tingly experiences we were after. House sitting for friends provided us a warm and cosy nest of our own, which was especially appreciated when the skies darkened and snow flurries crescendoed in strength and number. Sage taught me Minecraft and we chuckled together as we watched The Made Up Adventures of Dick Turpin, munching on corn chips and carrots. Once the sun emerged again and bathed the land in ethereal, New Mexican light, we leapt aboard our bikes and pedalled to the local pump track.
First, we cycled around it. Then, we unleashed Sage’s remote control car, timing our laps with furious excitement and intensity. When the battery ran out and the car slowed to a crawl, we grabbed the frisbee and flung it across a windy park – the same one we used to ride to when summer picnicking after school. Come lunchtime, we’d return to the idyll of our house-sitting home, before taking to the streets once again to cruise around on the Bici Burro, either visiting friends – “Sage, you’re growing up so fast!” – or frequent a shop that, whilst new to us, quickly became our favourite hangout. Tourist, as it’s mirthfully called, is a superbly curated, Aladdin’s Cave of an outdoor gear shop that’s run by a friend, Thayne.
Besides, I only see Sage in his holidays so it’s hard not to want to spoil him, and Tourist proved the perfect setting for doing so. On arrival, we found it hard to know where to settle our gaze. Initially, we enjoyed pinging from one nifty camping accessory to the next, studying wooden-handled hatchets and sleek pocket knives stored within a display case, and feasting our eyes on beautifully composed collections of camping equipment – picture walls of the brightest and finest Montbell sleeping bags, rows of surgically white Hyperlite backpacks, and more Snow Peak titanium paraphernalia than you ever knew existed. But it was the used gear closet where we spent most of our time, and our dollars.
Visiting Tourist with Sage stirred a thought. A second-hand gear shop such as this could well be the perfect form of 21st-century shopping for a growing, nature-loving child. Shopping there allows the frisson of excitement we feel in making a purchase, without tarnishing it with the uncomfortable reality that we’re also unleashing yet more clutter into our fragile world. It teaches our children to appreciate the old, and gives credence to the idea that ‘new to me’ can be just as good, if not better, than ‘new’. If it’s presented as well as it is here, it removes any social stigmas that some may feel about buying second hand, given our economic system’s disparaging views on the noble tradition of scrimping and saving, or ‘making do’. Plus, it’s always fun to ponder the history of preloved gear, and the life it led before you owned it.
I gave Sage $20, the only proviso being that it had to be spent on used gear. In he dived, pulling open drawers and rifling through mysterious boxes before emerging, triumphant, with a series of fantastic and considered scores: there was a stunning Moraknov knife ($8) that drew whistled breath from everyone he showed it to, a kite ($5) similar to the one we lost on a bike trip in France, a foldaway hand saw ($4) because you never know when you might need one, and a mini flashlight ($5) because flashlights and kids seem to go hand in hand. Given such a varied and creative haul, Thayne offered Sage a discount to keep him on budget. Enamoured by the experience, we then raided my storage unit and returned on the Bici Burro with a shopping bag of clothes, swapping them for store credit. This bought us a pair of barely-used running shoes for Sage, chosen because we’d started to run a mile every morning together before breakfast. For my part, I spied a delightful and timeless Fjallraven backpack, satisfying my own urge for retail therapy!
Later in the week, a window of warm weather finally opened, so I reached out to my friend Eric and suggested a campout, en famille, on the Caja del Rio – a high-elevation plateau that Sage and I have frequented over the years. The Caja was one of the first places that I overnighted in Santa Fe and it holds a dear place in my heart. It’s close enough to the city to be reached from a front door or place of work in a couple of hours, yet distant and remote enough for a complete sense of peace to prevail once there, as if teleporting you a million miles from any lights or city humdrum.
After following the Santa Fe River Trail out of town, we united with Eric, Acazia, their kids, and their dog Soba in the afternoon, at the trailhead where they’d parked. Eric and Acazia’s daughter Fiona is just a year younger than Sage, and the two got on well immediately. Their son Sawyer is six, and as his elder, Sage appeared to possess an aura that no adult could hope to match. Sawyer enthusiastically followed his advice on the art of changing gears, and we wondered if he was digging just a little bit deeper to ride all the way to the campsite and back on his little Salsa Timberjack, completely unassisted. Either way, it was a remarkable achievement! Like our first trip to Salida all those years ago, it reminded me that the only way to improve on a family campout is to share it with others.
Spending a night on the Caja rounded out our week in Santa Fe in the most satisfying and settling of ways. Imagine empty, sun-baked dirt roads in every which direction, a night so starry it’s impossible not to feel emotion and awe, two bags of marshmallows slow roasted over a fire, and the multi-tiered conversations that such a range of ages elicit. The vibes were high and we pictured a similar trip along the Great Divide for this summer. Come morning, kids frisbeed and demolished all remaining marshmallows, while adults dutifully packed away gear. Loaded with an enormous bale of sleeping bags, Eric’s mighty cargo bike, the Big Fat Dummy, looked especially resplendent in the soft, early morning New Mexican hues.
Back at the trailhead, I gently persuaded Sage to resist the temptation to catch a ride home, and commit this trip to a purely pedal-powered undertaking. So instead, we plotted a slow route back to town that would pass by the 1973 Airstream trailer in which we used to live, pausing to fly the kite when windy opportunities presented themselves, and even collecting a dozen fresh eggs from our former landlord along the way. All told, our overnighter was likely more than 50 miles in distance, which Sage rode on his fully laden bike. “That’s the first time I’ve carried all my own gear,” he reported with an undeniable sense of pride. We always enjoy a post-trip debrief, and it was heartening to hear him comment how much he enjoyed having the other kids around.
Although the New Mexican chapter of our lives is in the past, I like to think that our visit here succeeded in bringing back the fondest of memories for the two of us. On our penultimate day, we arranged to meet up with Sage’s ‘old’ best friend, who used to join us on bike riding-rockhounding playdates. After several years apart, his mother and I watched as they ran around together, falling into easy conversation as if it was just a week or two since they’d last seen each other. It was another feel-good moment to savour.
Finally, spring break was almost at an end, and there was just time to swing by a friend’s house to sample an extra special, vintage treat that he’d thoughtfully pulled out of his shed for us: a 26in wheeled, US-made Ellsworth full-suspension tandem from 2003! The last time I rode this remarkable machine, Sage was a toddler and I remember attempting to balance him precariously on the top tube. This time around, he was my stoker and helped propel us along, and together we imagined a journey on such a steed one day. Yes, the boy’s growing up fast… and I’m such a proud dad!
To find out more about Tourist, follow them on Instagram. If you’re in town to ride trails or start a bikepacking route, it’s well worth popping in, saying hi, and admiring all the new, used, and vintage gear on sale. Also, check out the Reanimator’s upcoming 2024 Tour of New Mexico that engages “in a curriculum covering four core topics: Bicycles, Sewing, Resiliency Strategies, and Emergency Response.” Echo is often able to carry out gear repairs, like replacing bust zippers and buckles.
If you find yourself heading out to the Caja del Rio for the night, The Broken Spoke and Sincere Cycle are both great shops to visit, with a wide array of bikepacking gear and experience in camping out in the area. Check in at Tourist Santa Fe too, as they often have used bikepacking gear, as well as other equipment to get you out there.”
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