Day 49: Riding the storm out

Day #49) July 31, 2011. Burley, ID to Bliss, ID: 81 miles in 5:17 hrs.

Ok, so yesterday evening went into a Subway to buy a sub for dinner and a sub for the morning breakfast. So I do the order: 1 meatball marinara and 1 seafood sensation. So the gal makes the seafood first, and I noticed that the pan was almost out, and she scooped out the remainder and then went to the back. Now I though she was going to come back with another pan of the seafood and finish my sub. But she returned with no pan, and then just smoothed out the stuff that was already on the sub. And so she proceeded to ask me what veggies I wanted on the sub. So I said: “Is that all of the seafood you’re going to put on it,” because I’ve been eating this stuff for three trips now, and I know EXACTLY what four scoops looks like on a sandwich. Well, she says, “I put four scoops on, and that’s what we’re supposed to put on it.” Then I replied, “look, you ran out of seafood in the pan there, you went back and checked for more, there wasn’t more and you’re now trying to pawn this off on me when it most definitely is not the right amount.” And let me tell ya, what she had put on that sub was about half of what you normally get. Then I said, “this is total bullshit. You don’t have more in the back and I’m NOT paying for this. Forget it! You can toss that and make me something else.” So she went into the back to check with a manager or something and then returned and asked me what I wanted instead, then she had a different waitress make the two subs for me.

Man, I was like shaking I was so pissed off. I’m dumb but not stupid, and don’t try to tell me that two scoops are four scoops. And like the amazing thing was that when she’d spread the seafood salad across the footlong it didn’t even cover the bread on the inside. It was just so ludicrous to have this young chickie trying to tell me that I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. So the other waitress made me a different sub and then the nutball chick rang me up, kind of with this pissed off attitude. That’s when I told her that she could have been honest with me and have just told me that there wasn’t enough to make a footlong sandwich, not to try to con me into believing that I was getting what I should.

Enough said. So up at 4 am with plenty of time to spare. I wasn’t planning on getting on the road until 6:30 am, so I had time to wander over to the lobby and grab two cups of coffee, relax, try to watch the local forecast (nothing in ID in the way of early Sunday morning news), eat breakfast, pack, and get my kit on. Tell you what, it’s a piece of cake now to get a footlong down the gullet at 5 am now compared to a month ago. I’m dialed into “high volume” eating in the am now! Got out into the morning with a vest on due to the 61-degree temps and got the ride going. Rode back into the center of town and got on Rt 30 W, and wow, looking up at the sky, I seemed to have storm clouds totally surrounding me. It looked just horrible to the south, and to the north – lightning! Was kind of an unsettling sight to see some much storm activity around. And judging by the forecast from last night, today was supposed to be 30% chance of rain today, mainly in the afternoon hours. So much for that forecast because it was raining and storming all the hell over the place. At least I had a nice little tailwind out of the SE.

Have to say that today was some of the most boring scenery I’ve experienced in the trip. I mean it was just flat and false flat the whole time amidst vast fields of potato, corn and wheat. There were mts off to the south and way, way off to the north. Sorry to say that even KS and Eastern CO was more interesting. But what was really catching my eye was the lightning to the north and the massive black sheets of rain to the south. Seemed as though I was riding down this ally-way between two big storm cells. It definitely gave me a real sense of urgency in my intensity level to at least get to Twin Falls, about 40 miles away. So I pretty much rode at a rather hard pace to stay rain free. Goal was to get to Twin Falls and reaccess the weather as to whether I could go further or not. Kept a pretty good pace going, past these windmill farms, and farms, and farms and farms. Just nothing but farms. I never realized that ID was big into farming. I guess the potato thing is just off the charts out here.

So I made it into Twin Falls and by then it was sprinkling and I was about 2.5 hrs into the ride. Now the big decision: stay with Rt 30 which is further to Bliss, ID than the interstate 84, or take I-84 and just try to ride like hell to beat the storm, which was nipping at my arse by that time. Earlier in my blogging I’d written about being able to ride on the interstate in UT, but you can only do that when there is zero opps. for riding on a parallel road system. But here in ID, the interstate is totally legal for a cyclist. Anyway, I took a look to the east and you could just see these massive sheets, like long drapes of rain coming my way. TO THE INTERSTATE! So I rode about 5 miles to the north and jumped on the I. Kind of makes me want to rename this trip: American Interstate!

And I just put it down, doing like 20-22 mph riding for my dry life, with the rain spritzing and drizzling. Even on the false flats I could maintain 17-18 mph. So I did this for about an hour, just pedaling for all it was worth. And I got ahead of the front, and finally got in some decent weather down the highway. You know the cool thing, was when the highway patrol went by….and just kept going! No stop, no hassles. Plan was to do a long section of freeway tomorrow, from like Bliss to Boise, because there is really nothing that parallels on the way to Boise. But looks like I started that a bit early by getting on today. Well, I was making some real time there, and then there was road construction, and it was an 8-mile section where traffic was rerouted onto just on lane, the eastbound lane, where it was just one lane each side. And in the westbound lane, well, that was brand new asphalt that hadn’t been bermed or painted yet. So rather than get on a thin, 2-foot strip of berm on the two-way eastbound lane, I just stayed on the new pavement and had that all to myself. Kind of wondered if the highway patrol would see it as I did, and be darned if two went by….and not a problem. Bingo!

By the time I hit the sign “Bliss 7 miles” I was just cooked. My legs were totally toast. My average at that time was the highest I’ve had on the trip – with the yak of course – at 15.4 mph! I’d paid the price for gunning it so hard. So when I was running and gunning I was getting a bit greedy and thinking that maybe I could get to Glenns Ferry or maybe even Boise with a monster day. But with 7 miles to go I kind of was running on fumes. So I decided to at least stop in Bliss for a massive fountain coke and something to eat. If I felt better I’d go the next 19 miles to Glenns Ferry – but a big NO to Boise. Rode to a little gas station/store called, get this…Stinker! Yes, stinker. Come on now, calling a store Stinker, with this little skunk logo under the text? I thought that so funny – maybe I was punch drunk.

So I went in Stinker and grabbed a 44 oz fountain coke and a pre-made ham sub. Then looked at the map. Looked at the map more, ate more, looked at the map, and it was like – I’m done, just don’t have it in me to put another 1.5 hrs in the saddle. Hell, the last 7 miles I’d dropped down to like 14 mph. I mean that was it. Just couldn’t imagine another 19 feeling that dead – especially my butt. Damn it’s just raw meat at this point. Ok, so Bliss, ID, population 275. This is another of the myriad of small towns on this trip. They do have: two motels, two gas stations, one café and that’s it. It’s a blip on the freeway. Got a motel from this really nice guy who owns a mom and pop place, and he gave me a deal on the room cuz I was riding across the country. Got internet, sat. TV, AC, huge room. Great deal at 44 bucks. The guy even told me he’d throw my sink-washed kit in their dryer when he saw me hanging cloths way out in the back on this fence. Told me the wind would likely blow them in the field.

I asked about food, and he told me about this gas station a block away that has this little grill connected to it. Said the food was great. So I gave it a try, and it’s just crazy good. Their burger was fabulous. I have to admit that I was really leery about gas station diners, but this place was so atypical to what you’d expect. Also did this small salad bar for 2 bucks extra. Came back and have been working for the remainder of the afternoon. I’ll definitely be going back to the gas station for my supper in an hour. Then relax my aching legs and butt in the bed vegging on the Food Channel’s “Next network star.” Wow, what a life I’m living!

Would love to make Boise tomorrow, but that entails an 87 mile day. We’ll see how the weather responds to this plan. Could be a long, hard day if the weather sucks.

That’s it, late……….Pete

Day 48: On to Idaho

Day #48) July 30, 2011. Snowville, UT to Burly, ID: 86 miles in 5:53 hrs.

Last night was certainly the most mundane Friday night I’ve had in ages. Now, no ill will to Snowville, UT, but honestly that was a very boring place to be overnighting in. Now to start with, I had worked for the better part of the afternoon on the computer and I was just dying for a break and a couple of beers, so I wandered back over to the Flying J. Now this Flying J is like the only real big gas stop until Burly, ID, so it was just jam packed with people – like shoulder to shoulder packed. I’m a closet agoraphobic, so this place just packed with people mulling through all the overpriced shit totally gave me the creeps. I had to get my beers and something for breakfast asap or I was going to crack. So there I was going up and down the isles, getting jostled by people doing the same thing as me. Everything was just so freaking expensive, so I really tried to be conservative at what I bought – if only for a matter of principle. So first to the beer, and to my utter amazement all they had was the big three Miller, Bud, Coors. No, check that, they did have a six of Corona for 10 bucks! Now I hate the big three, and I’m only faintly good with Corona, but at 10 bucks for a six – nope, I wasn’t about to get fleeced on that buy. Seriously, everything in the Flying J was like twice as expensive as you’d normally pay. So I did the unthinkable….I bought 2 Bud tall boys. God did that hurt! For breakfast I got a 3 dollar bag of trail mix.

So I bought the 2 tall boys (I have not drank a budwiser in decades!) walked back to the motel, with me being the only person there, and sat on a dilapidated picnic table in the sun and drank my brews while I watched life go on in little Snowville, UT. Really, if not for the freeway exit this place wouldn’t exist. So all I really saw was a parade of semis, pick-ups and tourist cars come and go to the two diners across from the motel. What a place that was, just a little dot on the map where people stop for gas, food, and maybe lodging – and that’s it. It’s just a quick-stop little place that you never even remember if you’re in a car gassing up and getting a quick bite for the road.

But to me, that was my home for the day. As I was sitting on the picnic table the temps were in the mid 90’s, and I mean it was just this real dry heat, like a baking kind of heat, what made the Snowville that much more of a Godforsaken place. Went back inside the motel room only because I was beginning to drip with sweat just sitting there on the table. So back inside I tried to just kind of surf around on my computer, but the speed was pretty slow, and it was just a pain to try to do anything. I mean hell, it took 5-10 min to download each of the pictures I’d put up on the blog. So esentually that was a wash also, and all I had left was the three TV channels. Ended up watching Judge Judy for a bit, then the news, then Seinfeld reruns, then I went to the “other” diner for dinner There I did a comparison of the chicken fried steak I’d eaten for luch at Molly’s diner. And Molly’s was the big winner. That second diner, I think it was called the Frontier, was way too expensive and the food was just mediocre compared to Molly’s. Should have gone with the sure bet. But that’s life – taking chances!

In the early evening I had such a jones for food that I cracked the trail mix and ended up eating the whole damned bag. Went to bed at 9 am, having turned on a overhead fan to kind of lull me to sleep in addition to drowning out the noise of the incoming traffic into the motel.

Got up at 4:14 am, walked over to the 24/7 Flying J for some coffee and another breakfast - due to my eating the trail mix last night. Went back to the motel and began packing and drinking coffee and eating. Now I could have left at like 5:30 am, but it was just really too bloody dark, partly because of the thick cloud cover that had moved in over night. So I waited for just a little longer till 6 for the dawn to break. Then, with reflective vest on and headlamp on, I hit the road. This morning was pretty cool, I mean goosebumps cool. But I’d rather endure 15 min of warming up than having put on the poly pro and sweating for that 15 min. So I just waited for the inevitable warm up to occur. And the road was a beautiful false flat descent, where I could just chug along at like 14-15 mph right from the gun. “Wow,” I thought, “this could be a quickie of a ride today if it’s all like this.”

And that was the case for a good 40 min of riding. Smooth sailing and all was good. Good until that false flat descent eventually turned into a false flat climb. Once I crossed over I-84 this false flat climb was just a road that was straight as an arrow, one of the straightest roads I’d encountered in the whole trip, that seemed to roll off into the horizon. To give you an example of how long and straight this road was, I’d see headlights up to the west coming at me and it would take anywhere from 8-10 min for the vehicle to pass me. I mean I could see these cars and trucks coming at me at 65+ mph and it would take that long for them to reach me. I had to back off the pedals to a 9-10 mph pace because I was just cooking the legs trying to maintain 12+. And that’s about the time I saw the sign: Burly 71 miles. Now by that time I’d already done a solid 10-12 miles, so now I was faced with 71 more miles – ooops I goofed on the calculation again! So just add another hour to the day.

Now this area I was riding through on Rt 30 W out of Snowville, it was just pure desolation. It deviated from I-84 by a long way, so I was just like out there in no-man’s land. Then I see another sign: No services for 102 miles. No that of course if if you continue into Nevada on Rt 30, but wow, I mean this is truly out there. I did get to the cut-off of Rt 30 and Rt 81, and then I saw another sign: Elko 186 miles. You’ve got some real balz to take that Rt 30 out into the badlands of UT and NV. Went right onto Rt 81 and kept doing that false flat climb, up and up and up. Must have taken me 1:20 hrs of that false flat and then I began a gradual false flat descent to the ID border. And from there my wish was granted – a fantastic false flat descent that lasted like 1:30 hrs through Southern ID. Again, it was just desolation, but this time I felt like I was making ground. Trouble was that I had still expended a ton of energy on that bloody false flat climb, so by the time the descent came I could just feel the legs running out of gas.

Could be the last several days of climbing. Could be the fact that I’m like 48 days into the ride. Could be a lot of things, but the legs were definitely feeling tired today. Tried to keep a good touch to the pedals nonetheless as the flat descent continued, and at times I was doing 20+ mph, really making up for the slow climbing portion of the ride. Passed a sign that read: Malta 25 miles, and amazingly enough I made Malta in 1:20 hrs. Malta, 50 miles and 3:25 hrs into the day was my first touch of civilization. Stopped at a little filling station for a giant fountain coke and a ham sandwitch. Talked with the cashier for a bit and found out that a big triathlon was taking place today in Burly – the Spudman triathlon.

Made the stop quick and then back on the bike ready for the final 33 miles. By this time my legs were really feeling dead, but behind me to the south the sky was really getting quite dark, and in the mts I could see stringers of rain draping down. Had to keep the pressure on the pedals and make Burly before any chance of rain, despite the forcast for a clear day. But at least the road was flat to gently rolling. Once I got to within 10 miles of Burly I saw a road closed sign that had been used for the triathlon, and then there were all the gu and gel packets smashed on the roadway. Got into town and it was just buzzing with triathletes. Most were already done with the race because I was able to ride on Rt 81 which was closed earlier in the day. I mean the whole town was just filled with car toting tri bikes.

Past a couple of “dive” dive motels on the way in on Rt 81, and I was like, hell I’ve already done that last night. Not tonight! So I kept riding into town and then took a right on the I-84 business rt to search out something a bit more palatable. Found a nice little place next to the interstate and that was that. Did Arby’s instead of Subway – Subway had like 30 hungry triathletes waiting in line right after the race and I just couldn’t wait in a line that big. Arby’s was just fine.

Back here to work and that’s another day on the road. No prognostications on tomorrow. I’m just going to take the day and do with it what I can. The weather has definitely taken a turn, and it looks like the rain could be coming into the city soon, despite the forecast.

From Spud country, I’m signing off…….Pete

Day 47: The climb of climbs

Day #47) July 29, 2011. Tremonton, UT to Snowville, UT: 41 miles in 3:54 hrs.

Good thing I did this day as a “lay up”, because it would have been a total butt kicker had I tried to make Burly, ID today.

Last even I decided to go to this little Mexican restaurant up the street and give it a go. And it was just an amazing surprise – in a very good way. There were a couple folks in this little “gas station turned Mexican restaurant, and they were all speaking spanish. I took that as a very good sign. So they were out of chicken, so I ordered two beef burritos for 4 bucks each. Now she gave me some red salsa and some green salsa, and I asked which was the hotter of the two. She indicated that the green was hotter, so I asked for some extra green salsa. Got back to the motel room, ripped the bag open and it was just crazy how big these things were. I mean we’re talking as think as your wrist. And first bite was the confirmation that I had hit a homerun. Man, these burritos were just great. Somehow the strips of beef were grilled (no ground beef here) such that they were just a bit on the crisp side in places – made for some delicious food. Inside was some kind of white cheese, lettuce, refried beans and various spices. I had to wait about 2 hours before I ate the second one.

Ok, so today was supposed to be the easy day. And time-wise it was, checking in at just under 4 hours. But intensity-wise, wow, I had a climb today that will go down in the books.

Go up at 4:30 am and then just enjoyed some morning java as I watched the local news and weather out of SLC. Ate 3 big blueberry muffins from the lounge area for the complimentary breakfast, and then packed. Got on the road at 6:45 am, a bit on the late side, but what with my estimation of 35-40 miles for the day I was in no hurry. Now yesterday I’d seen this monster looking climb like miles off in the distance to the west, and I presumed that this climb was the very same Rt 102 that I was on in the city of Tremonton. So seeing that yesterday and figuring that it was going to be in my future, that made it much easier to take when I found out that it was indeed part of my route. Anyway, I pedaled off to the west on 102 passing under I-15 and then a mile or so later over the top of I-84. And the closer I got to that climb the bigger it became.

Probably took like 5-6 miles before I actually got to the base of this thing. And by that time Rt 102 had deviated off to the S and this pup just continued straight west as a small county road. I think it was listed as 11200 N St. So I shifted to the little cookie right from the get-go, and then noted the time on my cyclo computer so I could see how long this insane thing would last. Now like I said, I had to shift into the little cookie right away, so that gives you an indication of how steep this thing was. Now the first 10 min was a fairly easy spin in the second easiest gear I had. Then the thing got steeper and I had to hit the easiest gear I had – the pie plate in the back.

Then I had to start standing with out of the saddle pedaling just to get up across the switchbacks. I mean I went from like 4 mph spinning in the saddle to about 3 mph out of the saddle on the first switchback. Back in the saddle after the switchback and then into the second switchback, this one really crazy steep, and I was soon doing just 2.7 or so mph. I mean it was so steep that I couldn’t have climbed it in the saddle. Just no way! Now this thing because a challenge, and I was key to take it on, just to see if I could keep the bike upright and not have to walk. Never done in on any of my cross-country trips, and I was determined to not do it today. So this second switchback took me a good 10 min of out of the saddle climbing to get up and over such that I could sit down and pedal when it eased up a bit. By then I was 30 min into the climb, with what looked like the mother of all inclinations at the very top, this notch in the mountainside where the road cuts through. And this thing was no switchback, rather it was just a straight shot up for a half mile or so.

I spun in the saddle as long as I could into that thing and then had to go out of the saddle again. And this was just crazy. The whole time I was under 3 mph just churning away out of the saddle. There were several cars that went by in the opposite direction, and in one car these two chicks gave me the thumbs up, and in several of the other cars the people just looked at me like I was crazy. I summated in 44 min and I have to say that this was one of the toughest climbs that I’ve ever done in a cross-country ride. It was just about as gnarly as Sunwapta Pass in the Canadian Rockies, but just not as long. At the top I was just amazed at how high up I’d climbed. Now I’m not talking big altitude here, but just the severity of the pitch, and its length, that’s what was so staggering.

Took some shots at the top and then descended, and I’ll tell ya what, I really had to dbl brake with those disk brakes on the back side of this monster. It was frighteningly steep, and what’s more there were cattle crossing rungs in the descent every 400 yrds or so, so I didn’t want to biff it on one of those things. I mean I was really braking on the steep section at the start. Once the graded settled out a bit I let it rip and descended for several miles down the the jcn with Rt 83 N. And there at the bottom of this monster descent, at the 83 jcn was this expansive complex that turned out to be one of the places (or the place) where the space shuttle’s external booster rockets were made. It looked more like a giant chemical plant.

Went N on 83 and it was just flat, flat, flat for a good 4 miles. I mean what a desolate place this was – the facility, a farm or two up on 83 and then nothing but this high foothills as far as the eye can see. The final two miles on 83 was a false flat up to I-84. Now as I’d mentioned a few blogs ago, I had found that if I could only ride on about 25 miles of I-84 I could bridge Rt 102 in Tremonton and Rt 30 in Snowville. If I couldn’t ride on 84 then I’d have to spend 200-300 additional miles going WAY out of the way to get to Burly, ID. I mean it was just a matter of those 25 miles to save me 3 days of riding. So I’d called the UT Highway Patrol office in SLC a few days back and left a detailed message with one of the higher up officers inquiring about this stretch of interstate to bike on. I was gone when he returned my call, but he left a message saying that I could indeed ride on the interstate on the berm on that particular stretch. Tell you what, that totally made my life so much easier. Honestly, you can’t imagine all the studying of maps I had done to see what the alternatives were if I could not ride on that stretch of interstate.

So anyway, I got to I-84, rode up the onramp west and began my interstate ride – which was a false flat climb for about 6 miles up another mountain. Now this was a joy to do compared to the monster I’d done earlier. I was in the middle cookie and just spun along on the far right side of the berm, going over this minor rumble strips that were situated every 100 feet or so. They were a minor inconvenience compared to 3 days of additional riding had I not been given permission to ride the “state”. Traffic zooming by at like 75 mph – no big deal. This climb took a good hour plus to finally get up and then I was greeted with about a 4 mile descent, followed by another false flat climb, this one probably like 7+ miles long, followed by another descent down into Snowville.

So I have to say that today was no easy ride by any means, but I was so happy to have saved myself hundreds of miles of additional riding that I was on cloud nine anyway. Now Snowville is about 2x bigger than good old Maybell, CO. Just a Flying J gasmart, 2 small diners, a campground and this motel – Outsider’s Inn. Stopped in at the Flying J and grabbed a 44 oz fountain coke for a buck, then rode 200 ft down the road the inn. This place is small – single floor, 8 rooms and no one anywhere to be found. Then I read the signage on the door – pick an envelope out of the plastic bin next to the door. That envelope has inside it: a room key, and sign-in card. The rooms are open so you can pick a room based on the several numbered envelopes with the numbered keys inside. Once you pick the room, you keep a key, fill out the card (credit card no. or cash) – and then put the envelope in the drop box on the door. It’s like picking a camping site on the honor system for God’s sake. Amazing! A couple of the rooms had been used the night before as the beds were disheveled and the key was left on the dresser. So I found a room, #5 and was filling out the card when the proprietor arrived to clean the rooms from last night.

I complimented her on the “honors motel” and then took care of payment. Now this little place is bare bones basic, with just a TV with 3 channels, no wifi (but my air card is a go with limited speed so I may not be able to download pictures) two beds, a dresser, a bed table and a beater chair. But it totally serves it’s purpose for me, making it such that I can split up a totally long ride. Showered washed kit and then hoofed it 2 min away to Molly’s Diner. Nice little retro place that’s probably really popular with the truckers. Got the lunch special – Chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, veggies, lunch roll, and chicken noodle soup. Homerun! Great meal. I was just packed, and the chicken noodle soup was a bowl, not some dinky cup.

Went to the park across the street and sat on a picnic bench in the shade of a shelter just taking in the vastness and the desolation of this place. Just amazing how desolate it is here. By then the temp had to be 90, and all around me were these barren, heat bleached foothills. I just sat there for 15 min wondering what the hell it takes to live in a lonely place like this. To me this place is just God forsaken, and to the locals this is home! Crazy isn’t it? Came back here and took advantage of the early day by doing bike maintenance. Fixed my front disk/rotor alignment and cleaned and lubed my drivetrain. Been working for several hour since then.

Think I’ll go to the Flying J and grab a few beers for this eve. Dinner – well let’s see….pizza at the Flying J or one of the two diners. Then time to veg with my whopping three TV channels. This ought to be some kind of Friday night! I think I’ll be surfing the net for the evening on my computer, racking up ggb on my aircard, instead of watching garbage on FOX, CBS or ABC.

Tomorrow – Idaho, yes! Two more states and I get this thing in the bag. All the best……..Pete

Day 46: Did I say easy ride?

Day #46) July 28, 2011. Salt Lake City, UT to Tremonton, UT: 78 miles in 6:11 hrs.

I just love looking back at the previous day’s blog, especially the final comments on the next day’s ride. Yesterday afternoon I wrote “Well, tomorrow I’m looking at a fairly easy ride to set me up for a big ride on Friday.” Yea right. I was on the bike for an “easy” ride of 78 miles today. And it was bloody work to. More in a minute.

Late night the old gremlin got the best of me. And what with Judy’s comment to me yesterday that all I eat is Subway and chinese, I decided to try something different. So right next door was Apollo’s Burgers – local, different, and interesting sounding. So I went over to the carry out kiosk and checked out the pictures of the stuff before I walked in to order. And damn, those were some BIG burgers. Went in and ordered the Apollo Burger and the Mushroom Swiss Burger and added in some onion rings. Ok, so I got my order, walked back to the room and opened the bag – Holy Moses were those burgers big! These are dbl burgers with like pastrami, lettuce, tomato, onion and the works on them. And then the oinion rings – had to be like ¾ lb of rings.

So I got into the Apollo, and it was just crazy good. The kind of local stuff that you just keep going back to all your life. This burger made Louie’s in Akron taste amateurish. But it was just a total monster. Once I ate the rings I was totally overflowing, and couldn’t even think of eating the Mushroom Swiss. Two hrs later I did eat the second burger. So I do change things up - thank you Jude!

Got up at 4:30 am and packed, then did one of the best breakfasts at a motel yet, and then got on the road at 6:30 am. Now I’d calculated today’s ride to be about 60 miles, all in the basin and all that I thought would be just as flat as the basin ride yesterday. NOPE. Now the first 1 hr was pretty good as I negociated out of SLC and worked my way north paralleling I-15 N on probably 6-8 different roads. And I have to pat myself on the back with my choice of roads because they were pretty darned sweet. No traffic trouble, decent berms, and great road surfaces. Once I got to Framington though the road really began to hug the foothills of the mts and the climbing began. No worries though as it was just an easy 60-mile day...I thought! The terrain was super rolling with the foothill literally a quarter mile off to my right. The homes and the neighborhoods were just spectacular and totally off the charts expensive. Saw a ton of cyclists whizzing past me both south and north. I only had to stop once to check with someone on directions, a policeman from the town of Farmington, who pretty much confirmed my route choice.

I was finally able to get on Rt 89 N (it was part of I-15 for 15-20 miles) which came off of the interstate, and that’s when the climbing really began, first as a super long false flat climb, and then as two pretty intense little cookie climbs. I’d thought that the whole Ogden, SLC Provo area was all one big, flat basin. WRONG. No, they’re basins separated by highlands. And the climb up out of the SLC basin and into the Ogden basin is the toughest I had. So on this stretch a rider caught up to me (and that’s not hard believe me) and we began to talk – him asking me about my trip and me asking him about his cycling. Turns out this is Bill’s first year as a cyclist, and he’s now training to do his first 100-mile ride down in the St. George area later in the fall. He was a runner, but has been sidelined by injuries a lot, so he made the switch to cycling. He looked to be doing quite well. So Bill filled me in on the stretch I was going to ride today, saying that I had one really big, steep climb on Rt 89.

He rode with me for about 25 min and then peeled off to ride down to the Great Salt Lake, off to my left about 3 miles. Hell, at times it looked like the ocean down there. After he left I did a good descent and then looked off to the north and there it was, this rampart that just went way the hell up into the horizon. So once I descended and got to the base of that climb the wind was just gusting out of the east at like 30+ mph, really forcing me to lean into the wind to not tip over. It was coming out of this canyon, kind of a wind tunnel that was just channeling the wind like a wind tunnel. Once I hit the climb that gusting wind was totally gone. It was really unique how localized it was. So the climb was indeed steep and long, and at the top of this pup were million dollar homes tucked right up onto the foothills.

Descended into Ogden, and I was really disappointed as to the looks of this place. It was rather disheveled and run down in places. Sorry to say this but it reminded me of parts of downtown Akron, OH. Off all the places in the basin I’d ridden through, this was probably the least appealing. And what floored me was that just up the hill were those million dollar homes. I mean there were points in my riding through downtown Ogden that it just felt creepy.

Kept rolling on Rt 89 N through Harrisville and N Ogden with more rolling climbing. Next city up was Brigham City. And this was a pretty place in the downtown, but the northern periphery was again, kind of seedy. By then I had 50 miles in, and I still had a good ways to go. So much for my easy 60-mile day. I realized I’d be in it for 70-80 today. The final 20 miles of the ride were really more in the country than urban. Once out of Brigham City it was just like I was heading out into the country, with farms, ranches and miles and miles of crop and grazelands. I was also surprised at all the orchards out in this northern basin area. Went by countless produce stands similar to our Szlay’s in the Cuyahoga Valley. There were places that specialized in cherries, others in peaches, and still others in veggies. Then there were the mega stands that had everything.

By the time I turned on Rt 13 N I felt as though I was in the high plains again, with more desolation in the basin and mts seemingly on all four sides of me. This part of the ride was indeed very flat, and I could maintain 14-17 mph to help bump up my overall average. Made one stop in the town of Corinne where I got a 44 oz fountain coke. Sucked it down and finished off the last 14 miles to the city of Tremonton. Place reminds me of some of the small towns I rode through in KS, save for the mts on all four sides of the basin. So I got into the city and went to this motel that was right down the street from a Subway. And I get in and no one’s there in the office, and there’s a No Vacancy sign up. So I asked a maid there if there were rooms available. Well, she couldn’t speak English. So I thanked her and went back to the office, with her following me saying, “no rooms, no rooms, no, no.” And I was like, I’m getting the hell out of here, close to Subway or not, this is nuts!” Rode down the road about a mile and came to a nice little place where English was the language of choice and got a very nice little efficiency. Then I just broke down my gear and rode back to Subway to eat.

Got a couple of Fosters Oil cans afterwards and rode back to the motel to work. I’m telling you this is a sweet little place for 45 bucks. Got my flat screen TV on the wall, a coffee table to work on, two foo-leather easy chairs to sit in, a refrig, a microwave, and a queen sized bed. Couple that with the all important AC and life is good.

Ok so tomorrow….I’m almost scard to say it will be an easy day. I’ll call it a “set-up” day. I’m looking to do like 35-45 miles to the town of Snowville, darned near on the ID border. Have to do that because the next decent sized town is Burly, ID, and it’s a solid 80+ miles from Snowville. So rather than attempt a 120-130 mile day tomorrow and “go for the green,” I’ll shoot for the fairway and lay up for a good day on Sat. Tomorrow is the day I get on the interstate for 25 miles. So I think I’ll hazard to say tomorrow will be much less in mileage than today. I should be correct on that one. Now on the intensity? Don’t know, could be climbing hell.

I think I’m going to walk on the wild side for dinner and do this little Mexican place just up the road. But NOT save any for breakfast. That’s a big no-no after that epic ride out of Walden, CO having had pizza for breakfast, and consequently acid-reflux for 2 hrs of total hell.

Could be totally out of contact up in Snowville tomorrow, so If you don’t have a blog to read on Sat morning, it’s because I had no cell and no wifi. Which reminds me, I had 4G coverage in SLC yesterday, and damn was that nice. Only had that 3 times on this trip – DC, St. Louis and SLC. Everything else has been 3G or less.

Late……..pete

Day 45: Salt Lake State of Mind

Day #45) July 27, 2011. Herber City, UT to Salt Lake City, UT: 66 miles in 5:7 hrs.

Man, my belly gremlin was just off the leash last night. I mean I was hungry from the time I got done riding to the time I went to bed. So around 7 pm I wandered over to a little chinese place and got some food – dinner and then something for the morning breakfast. Got some Shrimp Egg Foo Young for dinner, and it was just great, and got some Ham Fried Rice for breakfast. But got to tell you that it was all I could do NOT to eat that fried rice right after the egg foo young. I was even tempted to go out and get a big milk shake at Micky D’s but by God I’ve got restraint this year! Yes, I held back and went to sleep dreaming of waking up and eating that fried rice in the morning.

So I stayed up till a whopping 9 pm last nigh and slept to 5:10 this morning. Man I definitely needed that night of sleep. Slipped out to get a coffee from the gas station next door and then packed and nuked that fried rice and ate that. Got on the road at about 7am, and it felt just great to not have all that oil truck traffic to deal with. Traffic today was just the normal traffic I’d been dealing with all along. No more dbl oil tanker trucks all day long. Now the gentleman from the Strawberry Lake visitor’s center had told me that my ride from Heber City to Provo would be all downmountain. So I felt good knowing that I had no passes to climb today. He did mention that right around Jordanelle Res. that I’d have a bit of ups and downs, but generally it was all down.

Now Heber City is just completely surrounded by these beautiful mts. They’re just awesome to look at. I headed S on Rt 189 and began my descent to Provo, with this section of road called Provo Canyon Rd. As soon as I got on 189 S this monster mt range was staring me in the face, and as I got closer to the reservoir it just got bigger and bigger. Finally stopped at the reservoir and took some pics and then moved on. And true as yesterday was with respect to the gentleman’s guidance, so to was his call on the ride today – I hit some gentle climbs right around the reservoir. I have to say that doing these climbs, my legs were no where near as shredded as I thought they’d be. I mean I could feel that I’d done a lot yesterday, but they were pretty good actually. I did use the little cookie on a couple of the rollers and I did notice that when I went out f the saddle I felt it a bit in the quads. But all told, I was real happy with the way I felt today. Now my arse – that’s a different story. Damn it is sore! I mean I’m sitting on a big cushy pillow right now as I write this blog.

So I got around the rollers on the lake and then began the descent down Provo Canyon. And along the way I took some pics and kind of rode really casually. At one of the stops I pulled into a view area to take a few pics of Bridal Veil Falls, and just as I was shooting I noticed this bike & hike trail below the view area. So I was getting ready to leave and a sheriff pulled in, so I kind of flagged him down and asked about the bike trail. Amazingly enough he told me it went all the way to Provo, so I didn’t have to do the descent on 189. He directed me to go down the road a half mile and get on at a little park. Then I started picking his brain as to the best route on a bike into Salt Lake City. He pretty much agreed with what I was going to do, but did give me a little beta on a couple of different roads to go on. So he was just pulling up all these maps on his car computer and showing me each and every road to my destination. Then he wrote it all down on some note paper. I think we were there shooting the (&*%&&% for a good half hour, talking about cycling and racing and touring. Really nice guy.

Got going on the bike and hike, and man did it feel good to not to have to deal with traffic for 45 min. The trail was gorgeous, hugging this little river that was flowing off of the reservoir way up where I had started. I had several bikers giving me the thumbs up as they passed me. Made it down to Provo and let me tell you, this place is just a beautiful city, nestled right up against the mts that I’d just descended. What a sight it was riding north with those mts on my right side. I mean there are no foothills here like in Boulder CO and Fort Collins CO. In Provo the main range is really right smack dab there in your face.

Used the sheriff’s instructions and made it to Rt 89 N, and rode that pup for about 20 miles – with a wonderful southerly tailwind at my butt. So I could ride at like 14-18 mph the whole time. Damn, I just felt like riding the whole day. Now I was riding basically intercity, but the berm was just massive, or there was a designated bike lane to ride. Either way I felt perfectly comfortable in the 2 and 3 lanes of traffic. And actually, having ridden for weeks in the desolation of KS, CO, an UT, riding this urban gig really felt good and invigorating – as goofy as that might sound. So then I crossed over I-15 on this other road the sheriff had given me, and this had a huge bike lane on it. Took that to Rt 68 N and continued to Salt Lake City.

The temp out here was very reasonable, being in the 80’s and fairly dry. Now about the first 10 miles of 68 had a designated bike lane, and again, I was riding with those wonderful mts on my right the whole way. So I got up over a couple of minor climbs and then descended down into the big basin that Salt Lake City sits in. And damn, the construction and the business our here is just on fire. Most all of the developments are new, and everything really looks as if it’s been built within the last 5 or so years. Now this is the area that would be considered the southern burbs of SLC, and as I got closer to north SLC you could tell that things were older and have been around for awhile. Traffic got pretty busy the closer I got to the city, and eventually the big berm gave way to 3 lanes on each side of the road. Nonetheless, I had zero problems riding in the far right lane. Not one irate driver the whole day.

So where I was riding, that’s actually the western edge of SLC, so I never road into the downtown, but rather skirted it to the west. Started looking for a place to stay once I crossed over I-80, and right across the Interstate was a Quality Motel. Worked out just great – Subway across the street, chinese restaurant across the street, beer store across the street, price of motel very reasonable. Done. They even gave me the “guy riding across the country” discount! Real nice people in the Quality Motel, as the manager and desk clerk were really into what I was doing. So I said, after we talked for a bit, “does this mean I get the guy crossing the country on a bike discount?” And the manager replied, “heck yes you do!” And they really set me up just fine.

Did my usual post ride duties. Now I did call the UT highway patrol to ask them a question about riding on the interstate. See, there’s a route that I’m looking at but it dies out with about 25 miles of no state or county roads – BUT it can be done if you ride 25 miles on I-84. So just for shits and giggles I called and asked if it is lawfull. And be darned if one of the officers said “yes indeed you can do that. Just be careful and stay on the right hand side of the berm.” I was just blown away. But I’ve heard that this is permissible out west where sections of state and local roads die out but there’s just a piece of interstate to bridge the gap. So this will save me a boat load of mileage by not having to ride way to the NE in ID.

Well, tomorrow I’m looking at a fairly easy ride to set me up for a big ride on Friday. Friday could be like a 90-miler into Burly ID. That’s it for today. Late………Pete

Day 44: Mombo ride out of gas city hell

Day #44) July 26, 2011. Roosevelt, UT to Herber City, UT: 98 miles in 8:32 hrs.

Damnit I did it! This old fart still has it in the endurance dept.

Went to bed at 8:30 pm last night knowing that I really wanted to give it a go for the big daddy ride to Herber City – nearly 100 miles away and containing a grunt of a climbing session up to 8K into the mts. Bad thing was that today in Utah was predicted to be a really wet day, what with a big line of storms moving in from the south. So I hit the hay wondering if, despite my mindset to shoot for the moon on the ride, the storms could put the kibosh on my ride either in the beginning or somewhere during the ride.

Got up at 3:30 am and immediately looked out the window to see if it was raining. It wasn’t, but it had rained sometime last night very lightly. Turned on the morning news out of Salt Lake City at 4:30 am and listened and looked intently at the Doppler map. And let me tell you it was just a mess of green, yellow and red, especially down in the south in the Canyonlands area. But up in the northeast, in Roosevelt, it was just thick cloud cover. The general forecast was that it could rain or it might not rain to the north.

That’s all I needed. I packed, knocked down a half a sub, ate 5 or 6 fig newtons and downed some motel room java. Due to the cloud cover I couldn’t get on the road until 5:45 am. It was just a bit too dark and the traffic in Roosevelt at that time – it was like the LA rush hour for God’s sake. Now I typically get on the roads that early and it’s like the dead zone. Not out here with the oil/gas boom. I’m guessing what with this boom out here, that there are crews who are working 24/7. I mean it sounded like the freeway out there at that early hour. I was just amazing. And it made me even more determined to get the hell out of this part of UT asap.

Put my reflective jacket on, turned on my headlamp and got it rolling. Double tanker trucks, single tanker trucks, a gazillion white Ford, Chevy and Dodge pick-up trucks and various other work trucks were just buzzing past me. It was just totally amazing. I actually think this is worse that the boom going on in ND. And I started playing games to pass the time, counting how many vehicles out of each ten that passed me were related to the gas industry. Did this umpteen times and the best I got was 10 out of 10 and the worst I got was 8 out of 10!. Just a steady of stream of trucks passing me. Thank God at that point I had a 3-4 foot berm – with a rumble strip.

My ride today was WAY slower from the start than yesterday’s, that because of the false flat climbing right from the gun. It was all I could do to comfortable maintain 11-12 mph. And what with 90+ potential miles ahead of me I sure as heck wasn’t going to cook myself in the first 5 hrs, while expecting the day to take somewhere around 7+ hours. Took me about 2:20 hrs to get to the town of Duchesne, that at about a 12 mph average. Now the traffic had slowed down considerable save for those damnable dbl tanker trucks moving west and east at 65 mph. Most of the site workers in their white pick-ups had already gotten to their destinations by 8 am. But even in Duchesne, the place existed because of nothing but oil related businesses. Good choice to blow that one off. I stopped at a gas convenience store to get some fuel for the long haul – a cold coke and a banana. Made it like a bloody bit stop in NASCAR and was back on the bike in like under 5 min.

And this is where the grunt began. And today’s grunt surpassed what Brad and I did getting up into the Rockies last week. So I started this false flat climb in the big ring. And then into the middle ring, and then into the little ring. It started just as I crossed over a branch of Starvation Res. And that pup climbed up for…..1:30 hrs! Honestly, an hour and a half of climbing. And it was grueling climbing not just this false flat lollygagging I’d done in KS. This was real, and this was extremely long. And the cavalcade of tanker traffic just continued uninterrupted. I’d hoped that the mess would all turn off somewhere in Duchesne, but not the tankers. They just continued to rumble up and down Rt 40 like a bunch of angry bulls. Now on the plus side, never did I have a problem with one of these trucks. They all made it a point to go over the yellow, or when it was dbl lane on the climbing, they’d move to the left lane. I’m really happy that I installed that rear view mirror. Cuz today I was looking at that way more than I was looking at what was in front of me!

Went through a water two water bottles by the time I’d gotten to the “top” of that climb. And thankfully, with the cloud cover, it was pretty cool, like in the 70’s. So I wasn’t going through water like crazy, but I was getting pretty thirsty what with all the climbing. Once I pseudo-topped out, I did this gradual descent to a little rest area with vending machines. I mean this stretch of road was just lonely, long, and hardly even populated, so seeing that little rest stop for water and food, that was a plus I hadn’t counted on. Guzzled water from the fountain until I felt like my stomach was going to burst. Then I bought a sweet and salty nut bar out of the vending machine. Refilled bottles and another quick pit-stop. Back on the bike and rolling again. Because of that 1.5 hr climb my average had fallen to like 10.8 mph from 12. And suddenly I was recalculating my eta.

Now I had two options on this ride: bag it at a mountain chalet that is over priced and way too foo-foo for my taste, or take it all the way into Heber City. I was just going to see how I felt, and see how the weather looked. Either way I was going to get in more that 80 miles today, and at 8 mph that meant that the day would be at least 8 hours long. So anyway I did a slight descent into the ….hamlet, community, whatever of Fruitland. Now this pup was smaller than Maybell. I mean it was a grocery store and about 15-20 houses/trailers and that was it. Buzzed through. I had emergency food and plenty of liquids, so I just wanted to keep the train rolling.

And that’s when the (&*%^*%#^%$ hit the fan. Right out of Fruitland the big daddy of climbs began. And this dog was a mountain climb easily equal to what I’d done in CO. It pitched up quick and suddenly I was in the little cookie doing all I could to save the legs from getting cooked. Welcome to the Uinta Mts! It was beautiful, granted, but wow, with like 50 miles in my legs already I was beginning to wonder if I’d bitten off more than I could chew for the day. I mean this thing just wouldn’t stop. The majority of it was little cookie. And I had dbl lane on my climbing side so I used the far right lane, on the white line, rather than the berm that had pretty much disappeared and turned into a foot of rumble and a foot of berm.

Started going through water again by the bottle, just taking these big guzzles on occasion that would empty a quarter of a bottle at a time. Now as I had read the road map, and I’ll have to say that it had no passes listed and no topo lines to denote elevation, it looked to me that I’d be climbing to Strawberry Res. and then climbing again to Herber City. So going into this initial climb I was really concerned that the climbing was just going to torch me. Did the mindgame stuff calculating my eta at various mph ranges, and it just continued to make the day longer and longer. I even felt some sprinkles of rain now and then which gave me a sense of urgency on getting this pup done. Tell you what this thing went on for another 1:20 min before I finally topped out at Strawberry Res. All of this high country area is part of Uinta National Forest. There were plenty of camping areas available, but they were like 5-6 miles off the main road and down along the lake to the south.

So I just kept rolling on Rt 40. So it looked as though the Res. sits in this big saddle, and getting around the thing – it’s big – had to take another 45 min of riding on flat road. And the big problem was that they were doing road work, laying a new layer of asphalt, and had the lanes restricted down to just a narrow lane on each side with orange barrels partitioning off the berm and lanes. I had NOWHERE to hide from the trucks. Now when I could I’d duck into the opposite lane to like the big daddies go by. But in one instance I just couldn’t get over there due to oncoming traffic. And I hear this horn just honking and honking away at me. And I’m thinking: “ok just where in the hell do you want me to go – into the gravel for God’s sake?” And the honking just continued all the way up to me. Now by that time I was tired, sore, hungry, thirsty, and not in a friendly mood, so I just flipped the truck off and yelled out the F-bomb. Well, turns out that the guy was warning me of the wide load, and the guy riding shotgun pointed back at the trailer. So I kind of calmed down and waved thanks for the warning.

Came around the corner of the north end of the lake and saw a Visitor’s Center for the lake so I pulled in to refill the water bottles. I swear, I went in there so parched and punch drunk. I filled the bottle three times and drank each bottle. Then I refilled the bottles and did more drinking from the fountain. Now while I was going through this “drink till ya drop” routine, there were two older gentleman in there manning the help desk and kind of talking, but also kind of checking me out. So I asked the one fellow how far it was to the foo-foo chalet, and he told me 6 miles, all up with about 400 foot more in elevation gain. Then he said something that kind of blew me away. “From there it’s all down,” he said, “it’s 24 miles all down mountain to Heber City. You’d be better off just riding down to Heber.”

Now at that point I had thought that I’d have to climb another 24 miles to Heber, seeing that the road map kind of presented it as sitting at the top of the mountains. So I told him that and he replied, “I wouldn’t lie to you there’s not one bit of up in that whole downmountain! The chalet is just below the summit on the west side, so you can just coast to Heber.” “Ok I thought, if that’s indeed the case I just might go for the whole cookie.” Because honestly, I was totally cooked by then, and I’d resigned myself to go to the chalet for dinner and lodging. That was a gamechanger. Thanked the man and on I went to finish the mountin climb. Now the fist 3 miles out of this climb was pretty good, and I could actually big ring it, but then when a sign popped up telling of dbl lane starting again, I know I was SOL. And it was indeed little cookie time. So I climbed for like five min out of the saddle and then just had to stop and pull out some emergency food - my honey stinger energy chews – which are just like the shot blocks. These were cherry, and they just tasted so good that my bloody mouth exploded. I could well have gorged on ten packs of those. It was heaven. I have to thank my bud Drew for those little goodies he’d given me back in Fort Collins.

So I got going again and eventually topped out at a bit over 8K, and just like the old timer had told me, there just over the pass with the chalet. So I decided to trust him on the descent and go for the whole deal, and ride to Heber City. Now the distance to Heber City up at the summit was listed as 17 miles. And I was hoping there’d not be one inch of gain on that whole 17 miles.

(Right now at 6 pm MST it is just black outside here in Herber City, and the big storms are already invading Salt Lake City with a deluge – I’m watching local news. So the rain has arrived, and I feel pretty thankful to have gotten this ride in on such a volatile day.)

So that descent was just a screamer. I was so tired and beaten down that I just didn’t want to stop and take pictures or put on the helmet cam. I just wanted to be done. Now I figured that for 17 miles, I’d be descending for about 40-45 min. And damn, the minutes just flew by, 10 in, 20 in, 30 in and still descending, sometimes at 35-40 mph, with that yak just pushing me down mountain like a giant hand. And as I got further down the mt the temps got warmer and warmer. Before you knew it I had been descending for 40 min and had the city of Heber City in view. Did it! And I’m pretty happy that I’d stopped at that visitor’s center to get the beta from that gentleman manning the desk.

Got a little efficiency right smack dab next to a Subway. I actually felt pretty good considering that I’d just spent 8.5 hrs in the saddle pulling a yak all over hell’s half acre. Got a bucket of ice and just started mixing ice and water in my bottle and guzzling like 4 bottles worth. Called Judy to let her know I was alive and then just went over to the Subway with my salt stained kit on and munched down on 2 footlongs. Then did a 30 minute shower and washed my kit. Next up was ice cold beer and then this blog. I’m playing hooky from work today because I’m just too damned tired. I’ll veg on TV after I finish this.

Well, that’s about it. Tomorrow I’ll head down to Provo, and ride north to Salt Lake City. Feels great to have knocked off such a big chunk of riding today. Late……..Pete