Holbrook to Chambers, AZ 04-21-2026, Day 11

Although Brad’s Desert Inn was a nice enough place, they did not offer breakfast. They did have a fridge, microwave, and coffee maker in the room. Along with our Safeway Deli dinner last night, we had each got something for breakfast. I had an egg, cheese, sausage, potato bowl heated in the microwave, coffee, banana, and some leftover carrot cake and milk from last night’s dinner. It may sound like a lot, but what we had that morning was about all we had the rest of the day until we got to Chambers.

Since the rear wheel carries most of the weight, especially the 26 pounds of our panniers, I had been giving it some air every few days with a little hand pump to insure it was keeping pressure. I did that last night, but when I went to put on the panniers and gave a simple thumb test for pressure on the tire, I noticed it had gone flat over night. We were hoping to get out early to beat the heat and the growing wind, but we were off to a bad start as it takes 20-30 minutes to swap a tube on the rear wheel because the panniers, rack, and derailleur make it more complicated. Upon close examination the culprit was a fine thread of steel that had made it into the tire to reach the tube. These fragments typically come from the steel belted tire fragments along the highway. We had been dodging those tire fragments for several hundred miles, so it was inevitable that we’d get bit.

We made our way south out of town to catch Highway 180 east which would take us to the south entrance of the Petrified Forest National Park, 20 miles away. About 8 miles into our journey, Ron got his second flat of our trip – on the rear wheel, of course. We were lucky that we could take care of my flat while we were still in the room. Out on the road, there was no place to sit, no place to stand our bikes. It was harder and it took longer.

Once there, we had a great tour over the 28 miles of the road that covered the park. I bought some water at a gift shop near the entrance. There was no one manning the entrance, so we didn’t need to show our passes. About 2.5 miles in, we went into the visitor center, filled our water bottles and did our nature break in a civilized manner for once. Behind the center was the Giant Logs Trail.

We continued on our journey seeing the park at a pace and a viewpoint that those in cars will never see. The pictures simply can’t do justice to the wondrous landscape we encountered over the many “pointless ups and downs” of the roadway. That is to say we did a fair amount of climbing, but without a lot of elevation change to show for it.

About 20 miles into our 28 mile tour of the park, Ron had his 3rd flat, his second of the day. So it was rinse and repeat again.

It was getting warm and the wind was picking up. When a gust of a cross wind came along, it made our pannier laden bikes unstable to handle. We carried on, crossing under I-40 to a loop through the Painted Desert. The first marker was a recognition of old Route 66. I struck a pose that reminded me of a picture I had of my Dad. He was dressed in a 3 piece suit, wearing a fedora hat. The car was similar to this one and he had his foot on the running board.

As with the rest of the park, any pictures we took, and there were many, did not do justice to this landscape. This is just an example.

As you might have heard in the video, someone was asking us how it was going. A new problem had arisen by the time we reached the Painted Desert. Ron’s rear tire was slowly losing air as we went. He had put in the last tube he had with him and decided that he was just going to ride the final 23 miles and periodically stop to pump more air into the tire. In the end it was faster than trying to make another repair here on the road. We discovered the issue just after we came out from the gift shop at the end of the park road.

We made our way back onto I-40 and headed east. The wind had really picked up and at least it was at our backs. The traffic was heavy and we tried to make good time. After about 5 miles Ron had to stop and put more air in his tire. I had noticed that my ride had got more bumpy than the road should have given me. When Ron stopped, I put a thumb to my back tire and could tell that I was approaching a flat. We both pumped them up as best we could then rode like mad until we had to pump again. It was like blowing up a balloon letting it go, picking it up, blowing it up and then letting it fly, then ….. Ron was now only getting about 2-3 miles per pump, while I was easily getting 5-6. When he caught up with me on one of my pump-ups, we did a sanity check. There wasn’t much I could do to help Ron and we had less than 6 miles left, so I took off as fast as I could and got to the hotel first since Ron had to stop at least one more time.

When we did our usual shower/laundry routine, we headed to the restaurant behind the hotel. Understand that where we are staying tonight was the only reasonable distance from Holbrook through the Park. It is literally just off the exit to I-40. We can hear the traffic easily. There is a gas station, the hotel, and a restaurant attached to it “Open 24 hours”. When we went to the restaurant it was totally empty and supplies were all over the main dining counter. Some one eventually came out from the kitchen and explained that they had some major equipment issues and that the restaurant was closed. We wandered over to the gas station and got what we could for a dinner. Supposedly breakfast is included tomorrow, but we both got a packaged breakfast sandwich “just in case”. When Ron had gone for ice after he arrived he found a visitor just outside one of the rooms.

Right after dinner we spent a few hours plucking tine steel threads from our rear tires, patching tubes and doing a tire rotation to even out the wear. The rear gets worn faster because of the extra weight.

In spite of the flats and the lack of nourishment, we had an experience through the park that most people will never have. Here are the ride stats for the day. And the 3D view is here.

The Not So Lone Rider