End of an Era

Posted at May 22, 2018 11:08 pm

Early Sunday morning, my spouse and I grabbed our hot and aromatic cups of coffee and settled on the front porch to wait. It’s an annual ritual. Every year the Santa Fe Century 100 Mile Bicycle Race comes down the highway in front of our house, and we like to enjoy the morning sunshine while waiting for the first bikers to appear.

The ones who usually lead the winding trek down from Santa Fe–through mountains, passes and valleys–in the two-hour time frame are generally the Olympic-class competitors. It’s always fun to see the first few bikes come through–usually a few lone leaders, but occasionally an entire team with matching jerseys and helmets. Then the packs come behind them, usually in groups, until mid-day.

But this year we waited…and waited…and…

No bikes.

“Maybe I got the date wrong,” my other half said. But we didn’t think so. It’s always in May, and next weekend is Memorial Day, so it had to be the right Sunday.

We waited some more. Still no bikes came gliding by.

After a couple of hours–our coffees long gone and getting impatient to move on to other things on our To Do list–we got up and went back into the house with a “Huh. How strange.”

Later we found out why no bikers had appeared.

The route for the Santa Fe Century Bike Race has been changed. Permanently. For safely issues, it stated.

The spectacle of hundreds of bikers pedaling by our little slice of New Mexico will be no more. Ever.

I guess after many, many years our annual early Sunday morning in May bike watch is now history.

It’s kinda sad how things change.  

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