Day 6: Kingman to Peach Springs

Posted by: Arin

Another day, another ditch. The only difference is this one is underneath Route 66 on the Huatapai Indian Reservation in Peach Springs, AZ.

Today started out innocently enough. We made some breakfast and had a little skate sesh at the ditch that we slept in last night (see Instagram video). We left the ditch around 10:30 am to go fill up our water at a gas station and get on the road. Riding through town was mellow, and as soon as we got on Route 66 it seemed like smooth sailing; there was a tailwind and the road looked slightly downhill.

After a couple miles, however, I had a flat so we pulled over into a parking lot with some shade to fix it (and use my last tube). When I examined the tire, it had at least 20 thorns in it. Uh oh. Better check all of them now. I finished changing the tube and checked on my front wheel. Also flat, with tons of thorns in it. Luckily only one made it all the way through and I was able to patch it using the Mudfoot (Rema) patch kit I had gotten at the dirty hundo a couple weeks ago. Finally, we were ready to go. 

Psyche! Brad gave his front tire one last look through and he had a big thorn that was slowly leaking air, so we were back at it. We finally got moving again around 1:30. By this time the winds had changed and we had a brutal crosswind. About 10 miles in, I noticed a funny feeling. My rear tire was flat again! There was no shade is sight so we pulled over onto the side of the road to fix it. Now I had 2 patched tubes for the first time in years. We continued on, and the road curved to the right, giving us a killer tailwind that we rode all the way to a tourist stop another 10 miles away. After munching on some baby spinach and a couple of Cokes, it was time to go. But wait, I had another flat on my rear wheel. My fourth of the day and our fifth collectively. This was getting out of hand; and the puncture was less than 1cm from the last patch! After adding another patch we finally got going. Spoiler: this is the end of our flat tire woes for the day.

We had been riding for just a minute when I noticed something weird; Brad wasn't wearing his sunglasses for the first time on the whole trip, so I asked him about it. Turns out he had left them at the rest stop, so we rode straight back and luckily found them on the ground. The wind was so strong that it had blown them off of the table earlier. From there it was about 25 miles to Peach Springs, and we had a tailwind so we felt good... For about 10 minutes. The road took another turn and we were back in the crosswind. What followed was a tough couple of hours, eased only by the beautiful landscape.

We rolled into the only open building in Peach Springs, a hotel/visitor center, around 7 and asked where the nearest camping was. 12 more miles they told us, so we sat down to charge our phones and think. We decided to just ride in the dark, but as we were about to leave a woman approached us.

Here's the highlight of the day: she was so stoked on what we were doing that she offered to buy us dinner, and we couldn't refuse. A veggie burger and fries for me and a chile verde burrito for Brad later, we hit the road expecting to ride far in the dark and pay for camping. Fortunately we found this tunnel under the road pretty soon and set up camp for the night.

If it weren't for Denise, today would have been way tougher, but her kindness really helped us out, something for which I'll always be grateful. When you read this, thanks Denise!

Here's a view from the tent in the morning.

Also, I'm posting this on Monday and it's my mom's birthday! Happy birthday mom.