Gallup to Grants, NM 04-23-2026 Day 13

Just before I went to bed last night, I put a patched tube into my front tire. It had ended the day leaking air. I had found the hole in the tube, but couldn’t find where on the tire the puncture may have started. When I woke up this morning, the tire was nearly flat. I put the leaky tube under water and found a very small leak. I marked where it was, relative to the valve and marked a spot in both directions on the tire. Ron helped me find a tiny reflection created by a nearly flush insertion of one of the tiny wires that has flattened our tires. It took several minutes and together we pulled a 3-4 mm length of wire out of the tire. Not wanting to possibly damage a new tube, I put in one of the patched tubes I had and hoped it would hold. Then I added a second patch to the one damaged overnight. I guess this would count as my 3rd flat. We did all this before we went down for breakfast. By the time I finished packing, we weren’t on the road until almost 9 AM. We were out of bed at 6.

The wind was already strong as we left town on Route 66. Quickly we saw signs that the road was closed ahead. We had just past an entrance onto I-40, when we saw a sign that said the road closed in 3 miles. We determined we had to double back against the wind to the get on I-40 miles earlier than we had planned. The shoulder was fair, but we stopped every 5 miles or so to make sure our tires were still holding air. The wind was at our back and the scenery was beautiful to our sides.

If you look closely, you will see that there were not only fragments of damaged tires, but whole tires could accumulate along the shoulder!

We were making pretty good time on I-40, even though we were climbing to the Continental Divide. Things got a little tense when we came to a stretch of road construction. There were concrete barriers on both sides of our two eastbound lanes. We kept on eye on our rear view mirrors to make sure any traffic was moving to the left lane as we no longer had a shoulder to ride on. The big semis were especially good at getting over early. Unfortunately, as I was going uphill in a lot of traffic, I could see that one of the two semis approaching was not going to be able to get to the left before he reached me. Luckily, I was on a stretch that did not have barriers on my side and I stopped just before a barrier where I still had a little shoulder. This is why I am able write this tonight 🙂

After 27 miles on the road, we were able to get off I-40 to a frontage road that represents the original Route 66. Coincidentally, it was at the Continental Divide.

The wind had gotten stronger and we had both been able to pick up our pace. Between the tail wind and the general downhill slope, I truly rode like the wind, holding > 20 mph for miles at a time. I enjoyed the scenery and enjoyed watching the trains go by that paralleled our route.

We were able to stay off the interstate and stay on this road all the way into Grants. A good 10 miles outside of Grants, the road was even smoother. When we turned slightly south it became more of a cross wind and we felt like we almost had to lean to our right so we wouldn’t get blown over. At times the wind kicked up a lot of dust, too.

I got in just ahead of Ron and caught a lot of the markings of Grants former Route 66 glory.

Just as I had captured myself at this mural, Ron came flying by. When I looked up, he had found the landmark Route 66 Drive through. We stopped and posed for our drive through.

It was just after 2 PM and we hadn’t had anything since breakfast. Ron was in the mood for a beer and I wasn’t going to argue. We couldn’t find any place until we were almost out of town, getting close to our hotel. So we stopped at the Junkyard on 66 Brewery. It was a great choice.

We started with a beer each, but finished with another beer and some very good BBQ sandwiches.

We checked into our hotel for the usual maintenance of body, clothing, bikes, communication to the home front, and the necessary planning for the next day. That did include a short walk to a Dairy Queen for the daily ice cream ration. We didn’t have a flat all day. All the days have been good days, but that made this one even better. Today’s ride stats are here. The 3D view is here.

The Not So Lone Rider