CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 147 km loop that starts and ends near Taos, about 2 h 40 of riding. The stops in between: Questa, Red River, Eagle Nest and Angel Fire. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 21 km this is Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Taos is a small town with a big reputation among painters, writers and people who came for a visit and stayed. It lies at about 7,000 feet on a high plateau at the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico, with the dark ridge of the range rising to the east and the dry sagebrush plain dropping to the Rio Grande gorge to the west. The light is extraordinary, clear and golden, and early in the twentieth century it drew a group of artists, the Taos Society of Artists, who painted the landscape and the people. D. H. Lawrence also lived near here for a time in the 1920s, and his ranch can be visited.
Read the complete Taos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Taos is where the day begins. Next is Questa.
Questa announces itself as a working town, not a tourist one. Sitting at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico, it has a small plaza, an adobe church, a few cafes, a gas station, and the feeling of a place that has long been busy with other things. That is one of its charms. On the Enchanted Circle, which loops around Wheeler Peak through Taos, Questa, Red River, Eagle Nest, and Angel Fire, this is the community that has not been polished for visitors, and so it is a good place to eat a plain, honest meal and top up the tank.
Read the complete Questa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Questa comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Red River.
Red River is a mountain town that remembers being a mining camp, and it keeps a bit of the frontier in its main street. Prospectors arrived in the 1890s after gold and copper turned up in the canyon, and for a while the place was rough, with saloons and claims everywhere. The mines faded and the town reinvented itself as a ski and summer resort, and now it fills in winter with skiers and in summer with families, hikers and, on Memorial Day weekend, a large motorcycle rally that takes over the town.
Read the complete Red River write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 60 km into the recorded legs you reach Red River. Next is Eagle Nest.
Eagle Nest sits on the high Moreno Valley floor, where the wind has room to run, and the first thing you notice is the lake. Eagle Nest Lake was formed by a dam on the Cimarron River finished in 1918, a large, shining sheet of water against a backdrop of mountains. Anglers come for trout and kokanee salmon, and in winter ice-fishing shacks dot the surface. The village itself is little more than a strip of motels, cafés, and gift shops along the highway, with a population of a few hundred, and it lives on the traffic of the Enchanted Circle.
Read the complete Eagle Nest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eagle Nest, about halfway. Next is Angel Fire.
Angel Fire is best known for a single building, a small white chapel on a hillside that has nothing to do with skiing. Dr. Victor Westphall, a New Mexico man whose son David died in the Vietnam War in 1968, built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Chapel in his son's memory, and it grew into a state park that honours all those who served. The curved white walls rise against the mountains and the plain inside is deeply affecting. It is a place where people drop their voices without being asked.
Read the complete Angel Fire write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Angel Fire sits at 92 km, late in the day. Next is Taos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Taos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 147 km.
Taos → Questa is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Questa → Red River is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Red River → Eagle Nest is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eagle Nest → Angel Fire is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Angel Fire → Taos is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.