Bicycle Journey Progress

The journey begins on July 29th and ends on September 11th, 2023

Ride Progress: ABOUT TO START!
Daily summaries:
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terça-feira, 29 de maio de 2012

Day 47 – 05/19/2012 – Holbrook, AZ

When we left Gallup this day we hadn’t yet decided what our destination would be. But we knew one thing: that day we would move forward, no matter what. We left the hotel early, by nine o’clock. We then, as usual, adjusted the pressure of our tires on a local tire shop and hit the road.

There was pretty much no wind, so we could go forward very fast with speeds averaging 13 mph. For the first three hours we rode that way, covering about thirty miles twenty much trouble. That’s when we approached the New Mexico / Arizona border.




We took pictures on the state line sign and then stopped at a rest area right next to it. We had sandwiches with us so we took the time to eat before leaving. The Arizona Welcome Center had many brochures and we spent a few minutes exploring those before moving forward.

There were many rocky formations surrounding the road. On the top of some we saw a few Indian traditional tents, but I’m not sure if they were real or were there just to decorate the place. I believe the latter is true.


We pedaled strong and, after fifty miles, arrived in a place called Chambers. As usual we eat at a local Subway and, looking at our GPS, decided where to go. The only place with hotels moving forward was called Holbrook and was located about forty miles ahead. We got an extra sandwich to eat at the hotel and, with no further choices, by five forty we were back on the road. We rode as fast as we could, moving straight for ten miles at a time. Then we would stop, drink some water and keep going.


When the night finally arrived the temperatures dropped really quickly. As we moved forward we felt like there were layers of air with very different temperatures, some bearable with just a t-shirt and some much colder. We then stopped and dressed up better with jackets and gloves.

When we were about ten miles from Holbrook the highway changed. What once was a nice place to ride became a very dangerous area. They were having road work at that region so there was just one lane opened for each way, and the shoulder was very thin. Also, we approached the city limits the traffic increased very much and the trucks were passing by very close to us.

We rode for about an hour under those conditions. Then we arrived in Holbrook we looked for a place to get food, but the supermarkets were all closed already. We found a convenience store and got what we needed. Next, looked for a hotel and found a cheap one that looked nice.

We entered the room and eat our sandwich. Then we showered and prepared to sleep. That was a long day but it was worth it. When I looked at our odometer I noticed all the hard work had paid off: that day we covered 97 miles.