TWO-WHEELING IN TAOS

Rift Cycles – El Prado, NM

The Rio Grande churns a silken path far below the rocky and rugged plateau west and south of Taos. The river roils with the runoff from the spring melt of the northern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This rim of the Rio Grande Gorge is a spiderweb of hiking and biking trails, some of which dip all the way to the river, nearly 800 feet below.

It’s a favorite hangout for Molly Crickman and Rafael Guevara, life partners who also own the Rift Cycles shop in El Prado. Crickman and Guevara regularly ride the winding, bumpy, up-and-down single- and double-track pathways surrounding Taos, and they frequently lead mid-week community rides for anybody who wants to join in.

They have just one rule: Always go to the trailhead. “What are you going to be doing otherwise?” Crickman asks. “Get outside. Do something.”

Even when the weather doesn’t look great, being outside is so much better than being inside, Guevara chimes in, because there is, of course, the camaraderie, the stories – and the occasional adult beverage – that are shared at the trailhead as folks bond over a communal love of the outdoors, cycling, and rambunctious trail riding.

“Because no matter what, if it’s raining, if it’s storming, or if it’s snowing, if people still show up, we get to hang out and just maybe sit around the parking lot, look at the beautiful views, and have a few beers,” Guevara says with a smile. “What were you going to do instead? Watch some TV or something? No, it’s better to be out. Yeah. And then sometimes, what happens— it happens more often than not— everything clears up. And then we go on a ride. It’s better than ever, because now it’s not like the granulated dusty stuff. It actually is like, grippy dirt.”

BECOMING ENTREPRENEURS

The cycling enthusiasts, who started Rift Cycles on something of an afterthought, moved to the Taos area from Colorado a couple of years ago and realized there really was no efficient, full-service bike shop in town. Both Crickman and Guevara work full time in the tech industry, but they have the flexibility of working from their home, where they had first considered opening a high-end service shop. And the one shop that was open, Taos Cyclery, was up for sale. And while it provided an intriguing possibility it wasn’t quite what they wanted to do.

“We do a ton of riding and a ton of racing and we have a lot of mountain bikes,” Crickman says. “And we’re like, ‘Well, I guess we’re going to have to do all our own maintenance. We bought this house in town, and it actually had a separate space and was zoned commercially and residential. So we thought, ‘Let’s start a little shop in our house.’ And then we can do custom race builds for friends we met racing. So we were already a couple months into that process when Taos Cyclery came up for sale. Our friends were saying, ‘You gotta buy it.’ So we came to look at it, but it wasn’t our plan to have a full-service, full-time bike shop.”

Additionally, it needed a significant upgrade in methodology.
“It wasn’t modernized, everything was on paper, it was a really long wait to get everything,” Crickman says. “People were saying that they would leave their bike for a year. We wanted to bring a more fully rounded approach to the bike shop. We wanted to do rentals, we wanted to do service, we wanted to have retail, and have stuff in stock.”

Looking around the shop, cycles – mostly of the off-road variety – are hanging in well-organized rows. Two certified mechanics on staff deliver a range of bike repair and maintenance, and they are kept hopping on a consistent basis.
“I don’t want to talk ill of the Cyclery because those guys were great. But the pandemic really hurt supply chain and so they had a tough time getting parts and they just wouldn’t have anything in stock,” Crickman says. “We’ve been able to get things but we wanted to have parts for people; basic things like chains, brake pads, rotors and have it in the shop for you so that you’re not waiting for us to order it.”

Being hardcore cyclists themselves who love a good race or distance ride, Crickman and Guevara also wanted to be able to cater to the ultra-enthusiast rider who revels in breaking the mold on the trail. “We still do custom orders for people. We do custom bike builds, we do consignment and, yeah, we’ve gotten some really cool custom builds,” Crickman says. “We buy and sell used bikes. We fix up old bikes. We’ve done work with different schools in the area for their bike programs and helping them out to get bikes. The people who work on those programs are really cool; they help kids work on the bike all semester, and then the kids get to keep them.”

COMMUNITY CYCLING

The real turning point was when the Taos Cyclery owners came back with a lowball offer for the shop.
“And then at the end of the year, they came back to us, and they were like, ‘Hey, you guys are the only people we talk to that talks about community, that talked about your reasons for doing the bike shop. We got good vibes.’ So they cut the price for us,” Crickman recalls. “And so we bought it. Yeah. This is our first time owning a bike shop. It’s been a real learning journey.”

What followed was a multi-month renovation followed by a grand reopening in April 2023 with a whole new flavor to the shop.

That community feel was not just talk. Rift Cycles is all about engagement and growing the local cycling community.
“We did a series of free mechanics classes for women, trans and nonbinary people last year. So we did a three-part series with a flat-fixing clinic, a brakes clinic, and a drive train and derailleur clinic,” Crickman says. “We do a group ride all summer, every Thursday. And we try to make those different each week. We try to make those for all different abilities. So we’ll switch up the type of riding. Sometimes it’s an all level, no drop, beginner-friendly ride, sometimes it’s an intermediate mountain bike ride, sometimes a gravel or road ride, and sometimes it’s an advanced mountain bike ride. And I post that all ahead of time, with the level so that we can kind of be inclusive for all riders and give everybody something.”

The community aspect of the enterprise is an absolute must, Guevara says, so they volunteer at many local, organized cycling events, like the annual Enchanted Circle Ride, which is an 84-mile loop swinging from Taos through Angel Fire, Red River, Questa, and back to Taos, essentially looping around Wheeler Peak, New Mexico’s tallest peak at 13,167 feet.

“And our group rides, these are the things that if I was new in town or if I didn’t know about these trails or if I don’t know if I like mountain biking or not, that I would want someone like a bike shop to be able to take us on these rides to make us feel safe in an environment,” Guevara says. “So that’s hopefully what you’re gonna be feeling, as well.”

A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY, A LITTLE BIT ROCK N ROLL

Crickman and Guevara found each other in Colorado, but their backgrounds are about as different as can be.
Crickman hails from small-town Minnesota, but also received frightening, city-riding lessons as an urban bike messenger in New York City, braving some of the most fearsome motorists around. It left Crickman with a healthy respect and desire to get out and ride in more pastoral scenarios that may be a bit more harsh but where your abilities as a rider are not challenged by distracted or harried drivers.

Guevara, by contrast, grew up in the city, born and raised in Queens. By chance, Guevara got involved in the sport of fencing and turned out to have a true calling for it, earning a scholarship to study at St. John’s University. “I stopped fencing a year before I graduated, and then I got really fat because I started eating the same amount that I was when I was training twice a day, like six days a week, but I was eating the same,” Guevara says. “I had a computer job.”

And one of my friends had this really cool mountain bike with shocks in the front and the back, and I rode it once and rode it down some stairs, and I was like, ‘This is what I want.’ That epiphany actually led to the planting of a seed about entrepreneurship.

“I started to rack up a bill for all the things I wanted to do to my bicycles. So the best way to deal with that is to work for the shop. So I started working for the shop,” Guevara says. “But by the time I decided I was going to leave New York for the mountains, the owner was like, ‘What if I offered to sell you the shop?’ I had never thought about myself as being a bike shop owner. I didn’t buy the shop, but that was always rattling in the back of my head. First of all, she thought that I could run a shop back then, and that was really interesting and always bounced around and had me thinking maybe someday I’ll have a shot. But the same way you cook something really nice, and you think maybe one day you’ll own a restaurant. That’s how it was like, rattling back there.”

ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE

Mountain biking is one of those special endeavors that rewards riders for their efforts far beyond the sheer physical aspects, Guevara says. “I like the work and like the adrenaline you get from it. And it’s one of those things that you have whatever you put into it, you get out of it,” Guevara says. “Long term, it’s taken me to places because I decided to race bikes. I’ve gotten to go to such cool places. I’ve gotten to go back from where my mom is from; to Peru and mountain bike on 16,000-foot mountains. I’ve gotten to go to Portugal, outside of Lisbon, where I got to ride my bike down a mountain and then put my bike away and put on a wetsuit and go surfing. And all of these places that I’ve been to, I’ve made such great friends, where I could pretty much say, hey, I want to go here, hey, I want to go there. And then I’ll have somebody who will be my tour guide. We just came back from Hawaii, meeting up with somebody I met when I was in Oaxaca for a mountain bike race. And like we went over there, and what did we do instead of doing what people normally do? We rode down on volcanoes. And those types of experiences I don’t think I would have, and I value them a lot, if I didn’t have mountain biking. But, you know, the adrenaline fix is pretty good.”

As far as local rides go, however, Guevara says he would have to choose the Lost Lake Trail near Red River as his favorite. A nearly 5-mile uphill climb in, the ride that is rated moderate to difficult, ends at a pristine, upper-elevation lake surrounded by craggy peaks. “It’s a true high alpine adventure. You start on the dirt road, and then eventually it becomes less dirt road and then becomes trail and then it becomes single track,” Guevara says. “And the height of it when you get there, you’re not quite to the top. But when you get to the lake, it’s just such a scenic, high-alpine environment, because you’re flirting with being above tree line. You’re in the zone in between. And then you get to go downhill, all the way back to where you parked the car as one big loop. It’s probably one of the most accessible high alpine trails I’ve ever done. You’re not riding in wilderness, but it feels like you’re in the wilderness.”

Crickman, meanwhile, has a number of area trails that are among the to-go rides. “The Angel Fire Bikepark, that’s my favorite, but if I was going to ride right in Taos, probably the South Boundary area,” Crickman says. “Down South Boundary is super fun. Or if I’m riding a gravel bike, one of my favorite rides ever is to go out to the Rio Grande Bridge. And then there’s a trail called West Rim that’s a two-track that runs along the rim and then you can go down into the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument and then up the other side and then do a loop there. And that’s just like beautiful and no one’s out there. It’s absolutely stunning.”

MAKING CHANGES

Given Crickman’s experiences road riding, one of the things to ponder is the idea of promoting more safety for cyclists. “Because of my urban background and the urban riding I do in Taos, I feel like I have a vested interest in the town’s bike infrastructure,” Crickman says. “I want it to be safe for people to ride their bike in town with proper bike lanes and signage and just less aggression from drivers. We haven’t done it yet, but something I’d love to do is get a critical mass ride together, which is when you get a ton of people to ride and take over the street. It would be great to ride from here to the blinking light (at the north end of Taos) or to the plaza. It helps create awareness about cyclists and that cyclists are people, too. Because that’s the craziest thing; if there is an interaction, one of us will die and it’s not you. The lack of humanity given to cyclists is wild. Because we’re in the world trying to do a nice be healthy, enjoy life, and help save the planet.”

Photography by Mike Sandoval Editorial by Glen Rosales

Rift Cycles – El Prado, NM