We left El Paso, Texas, and headed north to the town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was a short 48 miles with only 1,000 ft ascent and everything went smoothly.

I’ve now replaced the rim tape on both wheels and the rear wheel now has a self sealing inner tube. I wonder how well that will work? All the spokes seem strong and apart from a difficult to trace squeak from behind Susan’s seat all appears well with the bike. Incidentally, there’s never been a squeak from my seat but I really don’t know if you can read anything into that 🙄.

Part of our route to Las Cruces went along a cycle path beside the Rio Grande river and on that path we passed into New Mexico. As everyone likes to see Susan and I standing beside a sign here is a photo at a New Mexico sign.

Las Cruces is a nice enough town and was established by the US Army in 1849. It was built near a stand of crosses marking the graves of travellers and soldiers and this landmark of crosses gave the town its name.

Las Cruces, nearby Mesilla and southern New Mexico was the area where the infamous Billy the Kid marauded. He stole, murdered, was arrested and jailed (in Mesilla) only to escape, murder and subsequently be hunted down by Pat Garrett, an American old west lawman. One day, Billy the Kid was holed up in Pete Maxwell’s (local land owner) house and suspecting someone was in the bedroom he walked in and asked “quien es?” (“who’s there?’). Garrett answered by shooting Billy the Kid twice in the chest. Frontier justice.

• Uncategorized