Friday, June 19, 2009

Day 13: Salt Lake City to Provo -- Route Reconstruction

Miles: 66
Riding time: 4:40
Avg speed: 14.1
Max speed: 30.5
Total trip miles: 945
Weather: sunny, high 70's, 10-20 mph S wind
Alt change: flat
Flats today:0; Total Flats 2;
New Pictures are here

My day started with Psalm 19 which starts with words that lift my heart to heaven in view of all that I have been reveling in.

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Today's ride provided us with great natural beauty again, even though it was a day full of city streets, abundent traffic, fully loaded trucks passing closely by and lots of consturction and detours. But to our left for the entire ride were the the majestic snow covered Wasatch mountains under a deep blue cloudless sky, towering over the towns and roads between Salt Lake City and Provo Utah.

The route sheet was up to multiple pages again since we had to travel from SLC's north west edge around the western edge of the city and then out the south east side to Provo. Provo also lies in the morning shadow of the Wasatch range and is the home of BYU. It's a neat clean college town from what we saw coming in.

The challenge today was not the distance, an abundance of flats, figuring out how best to re-balance fluid levels, the weather or even the rather brisk 10-20 mph wind. Rather it turned out to be navigation. The first 20 miles went by easily with Gerard and Judy leading a long string of riders through the first column of today's 3 column sheet. But then Gerards phone rang and we stopped. He conferred with Michelle for some time as he consulted a rather cryptic map of the area. He pulled pulled Bob in with his iphone and online map system for consultation. He graciously endured a steady stream of wise cracks from the 20+ riders who were now milling about. And after 15 minutes or so, decided we could in fact continue to the SAG stop because there was a detour around the 8 mile section of impassably rough torn up road.

So the train started moving again, turn by twisting turn until we pulled in at the SAG. Michelle and Sean had already come up with a considerably complicated alternate route that they recorded on the white board. After some further deliberation, Gerard thought it best if we waited for all the riders to arrive at the rest stop and then he would lead the whole crew over the 14 mile detour to get us back on route.

That worked quite well for the first 5 miles or so until Steve, one of the boys from Cleveland got a flat. I was with them so rode ahead to alert Gerard who woahed the wagon train while they wrestled with the flat. Sean the wrench soon rolled up in the silver van and took over. He quickly found that the spare tube also had a hole and so got all that squared away. Judy hung out with the 4 of us, sent Gerard and his charges along and took over lead dog duties when all was fixed since she too had those complex rerouting instructions.

All was well until Gerard circled back to tell us we were back on route at the 43 mile mark. Not clear if we were or not, or if our cue sheets had some errors, because the next 5 miles required some interesting loop backs and some spontaneous navigation because the cue sheet led us to some dead ends including one out bridge over I15 that was really all the way out.

When we finally did get back on course at about mile 48, the 6 of us decided lunch was in order so we stopped at a Kneaders -- sort of the Utah version of Panera. After lunch we continued to meander back and got into the Fairfield Inn at a very tardy 3:15-- later than yesterday's arrival with twice the miles.

As noted, every day is different and this on had it's delights on top of the beautiful mountain scenery. One of those for me, was seeing Jim, my roomie, champing at the bit to ride this morining and then waiting for me at the Fairfield when I rolled in feeling very chipper, already showered and with chocolate milk for me in hand! It was so great to see him back to feeling good and full of enthusiasm to continue. The two of us had prayed together as we trudged along I80 3 days ago, that God would restore his strength and He certainly did that today. We are grateful!

Tomorrow is another shorter type day with only modest climbing and hopefully modest traffic as well.

1 comment:

  1. I feel cheated---same pics as yesterday!! oh, well, different stories for today---where do you get these fairly insulting but descriptive terms---lead dog (Michelle), wagon train(you and your fellow riders) and giving poor Zero such a hard time about his chrome helmet---I think it's great--I'd wear it! Thanks for calling and filling me in on your day---will pray for a safe and steady ride tomorrow---XOX YOO

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