Today I had a near scare, and it reminded me that on these trips I’m only as good as my luck.
Riding north on Highway 57 out of Matehuala was more pleasant than I thought Highway 57 could be. I’m used to that hellscape, Cuota 57 from Querétaro to Mexico City.
This stretch had a high plateau with groves or forests or fields of yucca, whatever you call a bunch of those plants. They look a lot like cacti, but with bad hair days. Looking out over these vast swaths covered in these behemoths, with the Sierra Madre mountains as a backdrop, was a treat for the eyes. Maybe the most intense blue sky I have ever seen, with brilliantly white, pillowy low cumulus clouds.
Now, saying goodbye to 57, it was time to turn east at San Roberto onto Federal 58 toward Linares. It began as a broad, four-lane highway to the Pueblo Magico village of Linares. Not far into the ride, it took on a new look: limestone and high enough mountains that clouds obscured one of the peaks.
And then the road construction. A long stretch. At one point I couldn’t find the detour until I waited for someone to come along and show me the way. Our detour was on the left side, then the right side, then the middle. Enough orange cones that stretched end to end would certainly reach the moon.
I had been stopping frequently to take photos, and the last time I rode away, something weird was going on with the bike, as it seemed to be in gear, then neutral, then back in gear, then neutral —an unfamiliar, distinctly wrong feeling.
I stopped and did a careful inspection, removed a cover to see the countershaft sprocket, and readjusted my chain. I rolled the bike back and forth, shifting the bike through the gears. I wasn’t panicked, but my mind certainly was rolling through the what-ifs about how this situation might turn out. Having a KTM garage across the street wasn’t one of the solutions.
So, having found nothing askew, I gingerly took off. It must have been a one-off false neutral in the transmission. It’s been fine ever since. I tell myself that this bike is reliable, and not likely to suffer a catastrophic breakdown. I celebrated with lunch at the village of Iturbide, home to a forest research nursery and custom VWs
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Once the construction was over, the mountains got real. This stretch of the Sierra Madre Oriental range might be my favorite drama queen mountain range. These mountains were severe, impossibly steep and abrupt. A proper mountain crossing if I’ve ever made one. I stopped at nearly every corner to take photos I knew couldn’t capture the grandeur I was experiencing.
Then, on the way down, the road turned into a rhythm section, with the bike upright only in the brief moment between transitioning to left and right leans. Woosh.
Linares is a working Pueblo Mágico, not a tourist Pueblo Magico. Nobody comes here to get married. They come here for a genuine slice of nostalgia, history, working Mexico, and beauty. And they come for the Glorias
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A Gloria de Linares is a famous dense, chewy dulce de leche/cajeta, cooked down with sugar until it turns deep caramel, then mixed or topped with nuez (pecans). It comes wrapped in dark red cellophane. It’s named after the granddaughter of the woman who came up with this confection. I bought too many for my limited storage capacity, and when I handed my postcard to the clerk and asked if I could take photos, I got another assortment, courtesy of the house
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Many handsome buildings fell into my viewfinder in Linares
NOTE: Because this is a long-ass trip, I’m keeping a running total of the kilometers ridden. I’ll also note the average annual rainfall and altitude in each town I stay. Mexico’s climate changes dramatically from one region to the next, and the numbers will tell part of the story
Trip total: 599 km
Linares annual rainfall: 33 inches / 840 mm
Linares Altitude: In the mountains, it was 2,500 m (8,202 ft)
Tomorrow: Santiago, Wedding Pueblo Magico