How…do they expect a man to ride a horse in this country?  said Rawlins.
They don’t, said John Grady.  –Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

I crossed the river on the old Alameda bridge, which is now solely reserved for bicyclists, pedestrians and horses.  You can get to it from the Bosque Multiuse Trail.  On the western bank of the Río Grande you roll on into Corrales and a web of country roads.  The roads run parallel to the rectilinear irrigated farm plots.  A few roads follow acequias on the same axis as the river tracing the land’s subtle contours.  There are still open fields intact and wineries and small plots with livestock.  The suburbanized dwellings have adopted a spacious and sandy desert feel for the most part.  Llamas look at you still chewing from their grazing and horses of chestnut and all color coats are populous.  Road runners skitter on the loamy road shoulders and people walking their dogs smile and wave at you.  Corrales is a nice variety of place and part of the local flavor of mid central New Mexico bicycling.  It reminds me a lot of Santa Fe as the roads were laid out long before motorcars.  The land feels close up and timeless.  It is a landscape made at human scale, not industrial machine scale.  Bikes work well in this village environment.

more posts on Corrales and rides that go through there:
Stevie’s Happy Bikes: Total Awesomeness
Jemez Dam Ride
Cowboy Dreams in Corrales New Mexico