Enchanted Circle - Red River, NM

The Enchanted Circle ride is a century circle which starts in Red River, NM, and circles around to Taos, Angel Fire, Eagle Nest, and back to Red River. This ride is always the weekend after Labor Day in September. If you are looking for beautiful scenery and some challenging hills, this is the ride for you.

The Sitzmark Lodge on Main Street is usually our home for a few days. The ride normally takes place on Saturday now so we make a little vacation out of the trip. We usually arrive on Wednesday to give us a couple days to get accustomed to the altitude and take advantage of some of the best Mexican food in the area.

There's a short ride up the canyon that is nice with rolling hills. These seem a little more like small mountains since the oxygen is a little thinner in Red River. Another training ride we will do before the 'real' ride on Saturday is to head down to Questa and back. It's downhill for almost 13 miles so that means we have to climb the same 13 miles to get back to town.


On Saturday, we start early in Red River, usually with tights and jackets to keep us warm. We shed some of this by the time we get to the rest stop, 25 miles out, at Arroyo Hondo. From there, we ride another 10-12 miles to Taos where there is another rest stop at the Kit Carson Park. Now it's decision time. Do we try to find a ride back to Red River or do we continue on the trek. Okay, let's continue the ride this year. We'll ride 18 miles uphill to the top of Palo Flechada. We are definitely ready for another rest stop at this point. The next few miles are downhill but be careful, there are some pretty hairy turns on the way down toward Angel Fire.

We'll pass by the Vietnam Memorial as we skip the out and back section of 14 miles going toward Angel Fire Ski Resort and back. This will make our trek only 86 miles but with these tough climbs, 86 miles is plenty. This section is relatively flat but typically straight in to the wind. Once we get to Eagle Nest, we head up toward Bob Cat Pass and then the last 4 miles to Red River will be downhill. It's 17 miles to the top of Bob Cat Pass but the last 2 miles are by far the most difficult. The downhill makes for a nice finish to a long, challenging ride.

Of course, there are things to do here besides cycle. In addition to visiting Taos and a few historical sites, there is the Wild Rivers Recreation Area with some great hiking trails, located just north of Questa.