Flagstaff, Arizona to Holbrook, Arizona

Wow, was today ever a tough day!

This was 96 miles of rough road surfaces and constant crosswinds! What a tedious and difficult ride! The road surface was horrible, with all kinds of tiny little metal wires and other items. These worked rather like needles, with a seemingly magnetic attraction for our tires. Among our group of probably 20 to 25 riders, we had a cumulative total of 18 flats! Some had none. Sam had 4 flats. I had 3. (I had left for the day this morning with two tubes and two CO2 cartridges, so you can imagine my frustration with flat #3.)

We had left Flagstaff this morning with a bit of a tailwind. That was nice. The day was sunny, but not hot. That was also nice. Soon after the day started however, the wind became a strong and constant crosswind from the right. We were going east, and the wind was straight from the south. It may have been technically a pure crosswind, but it surely felt like a headwind. Changing flats in such a crosswind was really a challenge also.

As I understand it, the road conditions tomorrow promise to be similar. We will have similar mileage tomorrow, slightly more elevation gain, and the same road surfaces. Who knows about the wind!

Oh well! It is all good! After all, a bad day on the bike is still always better than a good day at work! (That reminds me..., I wonder how Ward Brown is surviving with his constant 24/7 on-call schedule. I do still feel a brief pang of guilt when I think of his call situation at work. Somehow I must try to bring myself to get over those guilt feelings. I think I can do it!)

We did go through Winslow, Arizona. That was neat. Many of us had photos taken of ourselves while we were standing on a corner there. It seemed like a hopelessly clever idea at the time. How cool it is to think that I too would be "standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona!"

Winslow, Arizona, is like a lot of places on old US route 66. When the Interstate came through, it appears that thriving and vibrant communities were suddenly robbed of their lifeblood. It is sad to see.

Tomorrow will bring with it a new state! At the end of the ride tomorrow we will pass into New Mexico! This is exciting! We will also then pass into a new time zone. We will be in Albuquerque by Thursday evening, and Santa Fe by Friday! Pretty cool!

Hopefully I will have fewer flats tomorrow.