Day fifty one, taoS, nm to durango co

I mentioned in the last post that the bloke that wrote the best motorcycle rides in the Rockies, rates Taos to Chama as his fav ride. When we rode this route in 2016 we did it in the opposite direction, I.e. Chama to Taos and I have to say I was a wee bit indifferent after earlier riding some awesome country in Colorado.

This time however, we rode it in that direction, I.e. Taos to Chama. This is a very cool ride. I have posted a pic or two of the bridge over the Rio Grande and then a straight As an arrow road, this is Taos to Tres Piedras. It is the section of route 64 from Tres Piadras to Tierra Amarilla after this, let’s say about 85 kms, that is the cream of this trip. This piece of road is one of New Mexico’s best kept secrets for motorcyclists, let’s keep it that way. Now New Mexico and Colorado riders will be familiar with this piece of road, but let me advise out of state riders or tourist riders like us, this is a must do ride, if you can ride it from the Taos end, for some reason the scenery is just awesome riding it in that direction. leaving Tres Piedras you ride through a mix of prairie and forested land as you slowly climb to the summit at Yellowjacket Pass, the temperature dropping commensurate with the altitude till you top out at just under 10,000’. We have posted a pic of the scenery from the summit as well.

Winding down the other side toward Tierra Amarilla, the scenery is outstanding, the road surface not so outstanding. As this road was so deserted, I didn’t have much to do except admire the scenery so I collated some stats for you. I know our loyal blog followers have a thirst for statistics. On this 85 km section of mountain riding we met 8 cars, 3 motor homes and 1 truck travelling in the opposite direction to us, 1 car and one motor home travelling in the same direction as us, zero motorcycles. This is not much traffic in an 85 km section of road, so we pretty much had route 64 to ourselves, neat eh?

re caffienating and refueling followed, continued to Pagosa Springs and then on to Durango, good riding but nothing like that run over the mountain. All in all a good days riding, as expected riding from New Mexico into Colorado.