Bryan Rogala Archives - Adventure Cycling Association

How To Bike Tour Santa Fe, New Mexico

Bryan Rogala — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:52:01 +0000

Northern New Mexico’s painted high desert landscapes, green chile, turquoise, margaritas, and world-class art galleries may make you never want to leave. And why should you? With plentiful gravel roads, mountain tracks, and numerous bike and multiuse trails, the city is also a cycling paradise. In fact, the International Mountain Biking Association designated the Southwestern city as a Silver Level Ride Center in 2014, and the League of American Bicyclists renewed Santa Fe’s status as a Silver-Level Bike Friendly Community last year. Translation? The New Mexico capital caters to cyclists of all persuasions. And it caters well. If you like your tires fat, you’ll have access to everything from high-alpine singletrack to machine-cut jump trails — all within minutes of downtown. Roadies and gravel enthusiasts may have it even better. Miles and miles of lonely gravel lanes meander through the piñon- and juniper-studded high desert. And with more than 300 days of sunshine a year, chances are excellent that you’ll find a weather window for a trip, whether you’re using Santa Fe as a home base or a launching point for a longer tour.

Photo: Nick Castelli; Unsplash. Santa Fe’s Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

Each season brings its own distinct flavor of riding. Spring temperatures are ideal for desert bikepacking trips, and summer marks the opening of post-snow high-alpine terrain. The real magic, however, happens during autumn in the Land of Enchantment (better known to locals as the Land of Entrapment for its ability to convert tourists into residents). Aspens start to change color in the mountains in late September, followed by the cottonwoods lower in the valleys, and the desert takes on a milder, more welcoming tone. There’s no better time to explore the City Different by two wheels.

Beginner / Day Ride

Route: Santa Fe Rail Trail Out and Back to Lamy Distance: 34 mile Elevation gain: 1,587 feet Santa Fe’s Rail Trail is the perfect introduction to the high desert. Start downtown in the popular Railyard Arts District and ride almost 17 miles out to the historic town of Lamy. The route takes you through the center of Santa Fe, past charming adobe homes and plenty of shops and restaurants, on almost five miles of paved bike path before switching to gravel at the Rabbit Road trailhead, making bigger tires a must. There, the scenery starts to change, treating you to sweeping views, and, eventually, the alluring Galisteo Basin. If you time your ride correctly, be sure to stop at Lamy’s Legal Tender Saloon & Eating House for lunch or a libation. (Some may recognize its vintage Brunswick bar and Old West decor from Amazon’s Outer Range or countless other recent Westerns.) But save some room. Once you’re back in Santa Fe, cap off your ride with a margarita and a plate of beloved, green chile-loaded New Mexican fare at Tomasita’s, which sits just steps away from the terminus of the Rail Trail.

Intermediate / Multiday

Route: The New Mexico Off-Road Runner Distance: 201 miles Elevation gain: 8,511 feet The New Mexico Off-Road Runner, a mostly unpaved route developed by Bikepacking.com in 2017, travels nearly 500 miles across the state from Santa Fe in the north to Las Cruces in the south. The full route takes around nine days, but if you want a quick taste or simply don’t have time to tackle the full ride, we recommend the first 201 miles from Santa Fe to the village of Bernardo. The small, unincorporated community lies just 18 miles south of Belen, the southernmost stop of the Rail Runner Express. So to save time — or your legs — you can grab a ticket for $10 and ride the rails back to Santa Fe where you started. (Alternatively, you could start your trip with a train ride, then pedal the route in reverse.) Both options are equally good. If you choose to leave from Santa Fe, you’ll pedal through the capital city for several miles on the same car-free Rail Trail as our beginner route until it intersects Avenida Vista Grande in the sleepy suburb of El Dorado. (Expect plenty of Spanish road names.) From here, you’ll head east on pavement towards Glorieta Mesa, where the route turns into dirt roads and two tracks. As you enter the 1.6-million-acre Santa Fe National Forest, you’ll be treated to incredible views of the untamed terrain that surrounds Santa Fe. Camping opportunities abound on Glorieta and Rowe mesas, so plan to spend a night in the forest on public land before you enter the ranchlands between Rowe Mesa and Moriarity, population 1,946. It may be small, but the town is home to several restaurants, a grocery store, and the Sierra Blanca Brewing Company should you need to quench your thirst after restocking supplies. From Moriarity, the route follows the Manzano Mountains foothills before dipping into the Cibola National Forest to finish on a paved stretch into Bernardo. This trip is best ridden in fall and likely best enjoyed on a rigid or hardtail mountain bike with at least a 2.3-inch tire. Some folks may be comfortable riding a gravel rig, but New Mexico’s dirt roads can be rough and washboarded, so a little extra cushion is advisable. Whatever bike you choose, just make sure you run a tubeless tire setup: With cactus spines, goathead thorns, and sharp rocks, you’ll thank us later.

Go and Stay

Tiny Santa Fe Regional Airport has direct flights to and from Dallas, Denver, and Phoenix, or you can fly into Albuquerque and catch the train to Santa Fe. Either way, you shouldn’t need to rent a car. Lodging in Santa Fe is plentiful and ranges from upscale resorts such as the Four Seasons and Bishop’s Lodge to old-school motor lodges converted to hipster motels like El Rey Court and the Mystic Santa Fe. Five independent bike shops, plus an REI, mean you’ll have plenty of options for last-minute bike needs.

Arts and Culture

One bonus to starting and ending your trip in Santa Fe? The multitude of activities available when you’re not on the bike. No visit would be complete without a walk up Canyon Road, a historic street lined with more than 100 art galleries. Across town lies another absolute must: Meow Wolf, an interactive and immersive art exhibit that should be unlike any art installation you’ve ever visited. Depending on your schedule, you could also earmark a day to spend at October’s annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, where more than 500 balloons launch each morning.

Groceries and Food

Santa Fe is as well known for its culinary arts as its visual ones, so there’s no shortage of restaurants to fuel you up before your ride. One of its newest breweries, Nuckolls Brewing Co., lies just feet from the beginning of the Rail Trail where it serves up both delicious pints and pub fare. Cafe Fina, an old gas-station-turned-diner with a local cult following, lies just outside town near El Dorado, which you’ll pass through on Day One of our expert ride. Whatever you order at Cafe Fina, be sure to grab a pastry for the road, too. Our favorite: the cranberry almond scone.

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Me, Myself, and I

Bryan Rogala — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 20:59:10 +0000

This story originally appeared in the 2024 Nov/Dec issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine’s Final Mile essay anthology.

***

I rode with tears streaming down my face. I pedaled as hard as I could, hoping that being on my bike would fix it. It used to always fix it. But this time was different — for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be there anymore. As cars whizzed by, I couldn’t help but think things would be easier if I rode in front of one. In August 2019, two friends and I spent 14 days bikepacking 539 miles along the Colorado Trail. I’d spent the early months of that year training for the ride, and for much of the summer, I’d put in more than 100 miles a week on my mountain bike to prepare. But when I returned to my home in New Mexico and settled back into normal life, my anxiety and depression began to ratchet up.

It kept getting worse until those intrusive thoughts started taking up longer residences in my brain, particularly anytime I rode by myself. What was once a sacred space and a way to clear my head became something I feared because it meant I had to be alone with myself and my thoughts. And I didn’t like either. That’s when I knew things weren’t working. I’d been in therapy for a year by the time I started to fear cycling. I’d done a lot of work to understand and regulate my emotions, which I’d come to realize had always been an issue for me — I just hadn’t fully known it. I grew up in a wonderful home with loving parents, but depression and anxiety run in the family. I also grew up in the Midwest, where “hard things” often aren’t talked about, especially among men, and until I started therapy, the only real way I’d combatted my undiagnosed anxiety and depression was exercise, particularly riding my mountain bike. After my mental health started to get worse when I returned from the Colorado Trail, I leaned into that. “I was fine on the trail,” I told myself, “I just need to ride more.” I now know that sounds preposterous, but I’ve spent most of my career working in the outdoor recreation industry as a video producer and writer. In that time, I’ve been constantly fed the notion that all I need to do to fix my brain is simply work up a sweat outdoors. Headlines like “Science’s Newest Miracle Drug is Free,” “The Incredible Link between Nature and Your Emotions,” and “Take Two Hours of Pine Forest and Call Me in the Morning” dot the pages of Outside magazine and its website, perpetuating that idea. These articles are well-intentioned — and there are proven mental and physical health benefits to spending time in nature — but when you combine this mindset with a community of outdoor athletes that celebrates “suffering” in the mountains, lauds first descents and fastest known times, and glorifies podium finishes, things can get dark. It’s one thing to extoll the benefits of exercise and time spent outside, but doing so without mention or consideration of therapy and medication can be dangerous because it delegitimizes and undermines treatment people may desperately need. When you pull back the curtain of stoke, you’ll find a grin- and-bear-it mentality that permeates people’s approach to mental health. It seems like some folks in the industry, such as photographer Cory Richards, have recently begun talking about this. In The Color of Everything, Richards’s recent book on his career and struggles with mental health, he writes about how his adventures grew bigger and riskier while trying to fill a void inside, and it eventually quit working. But the truth of the matter is that most people don’t talk about it. I was certainly guilty of that, and I initially resisted the idea of help of any kind. After all, I knew the cure: ride more. But it turns out you can’t actually ride away from your problems. When I could no longer control my thoughts, I finally talked to my therapist about medication. That was four years ago, and it’s crystal clear to me now that I needed more help than therapy, fresh air, and exercise could provide on their own. Medication has been life changing. It has allowed me to fully utilize the skills and coping mechanisms I’ve learned in therapy, and, perhaps just as importantly, find joy in riding again. This year, five years after bikepacking the Colorado Trail, I rode the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) solo to celebrate my 35th birthday. I spent a year and a half researching and preparing, and as my June 1 departure drew closer, the thing I was most nervous about wasn’t the physical or logistical challenges that lay ahead. I worried whether I could simply spend that much time alone. Before I set out, friends asked me if I thought I’d be all right being by myself for so long, and how I planned to deal with it. I wasn’t sure, I told them, but I thought I’d be okay. I planned my itinerary so that I’d see people every so often. I also convinced my wife to drive along with me the last few days of the trip. Still, I knew it’d be a lot of time alone with my thoughts, and that scared me. The farther I pedaled, though, the less afraid I became. My longest solo stretch (Salida, Colorado, to just past Lima, Montana) came about two weeks into the trip. By that point, the initial excitement had worn off, and I was anxious to see where the next few weeks would take me mentally. It wasn’t all easy riding: my dog passed away while I was battling hellish headwinds in Wyoming’s Great Basin; I had a couple of close calls with distracted drivers, moose, and grizzly bears; and I rode through hours of driving rain. But I never found myself in a spot too low to climb out of. The endless vistas, glorious gravel, and hypnotic pace helped, to be sure, but I had more tools in my arsenal. That made all the difference. I’m proud to say that I finished my 2,700-mile ride from Antelope Wells, New Mexico, to Banff, Alberta, on July 15. I spent 45 days on the route, nearly 30 of which were alone. Just like life, the trip was filled with ups and downs, but I came to appreciate even the low moments and found joy in riding solo again. I came home with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for all of the amazing things I saw and people I met. And especially for the long days of happy, meandering thoughts on the bike. More than anything, I rode into Banff feeling more grateful to be alive than ever before.

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