Day 13    Salt Lake City to Provo, UT

Distance: 64 miles

Weather: Started at 62 degrees and ended at 101 degrees

Terrian: Mostly flat with a couple small climbs

Elevation: 4512 ft

Total Climbing: 1990 ft

 

Today was another easy day.  Easy, but frustrating.  Ridng from Salt Lake City to Provo is pretty much like riding from downtown Detroit to Mount Clemens or from one side of Grand Rapids to the other.  We were on pretty busy streets without big shoulders or room to move.  Some of our riders didn't really grasp the concept of sharing the road so several motorists honked or yelled their disapproval.  I hope that this changes as we are not on the expressway anymore. 

We did ride through the Brigham Young campus and it was very impressive.  The campus, and Provo for that matter, are nestled up to the mountains which always makes for great scenery.  Nice academic buildings and the football and softball stadiums were places that many athletic departments would envy.  Riding past the football stadium sparked the conversation with the Brits about the whole football / soccer thing.  They now understand that here in America we play football in the "football stadium" and soccer on the "soccer field."  One sport draws thousands upon thousands of fans and the other draws a couple hundred or so on a good day.  Boys, you're not in England anymore.  Other than that there isn't really anything important to report.  The day off did the body well.  My saddle sores did not kick in until about 30 miles into the ride.  That was 30 miles of heaven though.  All in all they are getting better though.  It could be worse.  We had a rider call it quits for the second segment yesterday.  Bill had been struggling with Achille's tendinitis since the second day of the tour.  He had taken several days off during the first two weeks, but it didn't do much good.  He saw a physician yesterday and was told to rest for 1-2 weeks.  He will meet back up with us in Pueblo.  We all wish him the best.

I have figured out the problem with the pictures so I have went back and added a couple of photos from the last couple of days.  Today's pictures aren't much.  I wasn't really in the picture taking mood.  Sorry.

 

    Mountains...... 

More mountains......

Even more mountains

  

Day 14    Provo to Price, UT

Distance: 75 miles

Weather:

Terrian:

Elevation: 5546 ft

Total Climbing: 3930 ft

 

Wow, everyone here is beat.  Today's miles were probably the toughest that we have rode so far.  The day started out at 73 degrees at 7:30am.  Within the first hour we were riding uphill into a 30 mph headwind for almost an hour.  After that we continued to climb for the next 25 miles with a lighter headwind.  When we reached Soldier Summit it was 96 degrees.  As usual after a big climb we were rewarded with a nice decent through the rocky canyon.  It was beautiful.  We must have stopped a dozen times to take pictures.  The wind in the canyon was blowing all over the place.  We were hit with headwinds and crosswinds around every corner.  It made for a rather technical descent, but fun none the less. 

I rode with my normal crew and had an enjoyable day.  A couple points of interest on the ride were the vermin that we saw at the SAG stop.  They were like little groundhogs and were everywhere.  It was like an episode of Meerkat Manor.  Five minutes after we pulled up they were all eating Ritz crackers and trail mix.  We also had another treat at the SAG.  Eating at the pavillion next to our was a group of about 20 French tourists.  Once Robert (the Frenchman) heard a word of French he was over there.  The next thing you know he is sitting down eating a well prepared, real lunch and we are standing there eating Wheat thins, bananas, trail mix.  Not fair!  When we went to pull back out on the road Robert received a hero's send off.  The French tourists all stood up, cheered, clapped, or patted Robert on the back.  It was quite a sight.  Some of us boo'ed.  I won't say who they were though. 

Another point of interest today was the Colton Hilltop store.  The place was as old as the dirt it was built on.  Inside there was only one thing that we were looking for although we all bought food and drink.  The story goes that the grandfather of the current store owner was friends with a particular bandit.  A rather famous bandit indeed.  The proof is an old photograph displayed behind the counter.  A photograph that I held in my hand and was good enough to photograph for all of you.  You will enjoy it below.   

I don't think that I have anything else to add today.  At the request of my buddy Joe I talked a little politics with Andrew the Brit, but I won't bore you with that conversation.  Enjoy the pictures.  I have been told that tomorrow is another very photogenic ride.  I look forward to our "picture breaks".  Especially when we are climbing up one of our 6-10 mile climbs. 

Tim

 

 

Cute little vermin. They were all over the place.

 

 

 Here is another one of my summit pictures.  The woman on the far left is the one and only Arlene.  Just for the record I beat her up the hill today.  The one in red is Michelle the tour guide.  Next to her is Erin, the girl doubled her longest ride on the first day of the tour.  Finally there is Wayne.  He is riding for the Dr. Larry Turner foundation.  Dr. Turner died in one of the 9/11 plane crashes.

 

 

 Me in the canyon.  Interesting rock formation.   Do I look thinner to anyone? 

 

 

Here is the picture.  The guy on the right is the grandfather of the store owner, who is rather old himself.  The guy in the middle is one of their mutual friends.  The guy on the left is none other than the famous..................Sundance Kid.  Pretty cool, huh? 

 

 

Day 15    Price to Green River, UT

Distance: 67 miles

Weather: Started at 75 and ended at 97 degrees

Terrian:  Mostly flat with a couple of small climbs

Elevation: 4146 ft

Total Climbing: 1300 ft

 

This one is going to be short.  The internet is running very slowly and I am running out of time.  Tomorrow is a big day and today was no piece of cake.  For the second day we rode into a headwind for the majority of the ride.  It was very frustrating, and hard.  If I was overweight and riding a Sherman tank of a bike today would have been really hard.  Oh yeah, that's right.  I am and I do. 

Anyway, the only good thing about the ride today was when a coyote ran out in the road in front of us to pick up a  roadkill rabbit.  He came out of the brush on the right hand side of the road about 50 yards ahead of us, picked up the rabbit, looked at us, and disappeared off to the left.  We rode up quickly and attempted to get the cameras out but the coyote was too quick.  He ran up a small hill, turned to look at us one last time, and then disappeared.  All I needed was 5 more seconds and I would have gotten a good shot. 

At about the 40 mile mark of today's ride I kind of freaked out, put my head down, and pretty much rode as fast as I could for as long as I could.  I just wanted to get out of the headwind and off the road.  I had a quick stop for water where I picked up Jeff and we headed out again.  Naturally Jeff got his 6th flat of the tour at this time.  Instead of fixing the flat Jeff just stopped a couple times to pump it up and kept us going.  We rolled into town, stopped at Arby's, ate in the nice air conditioning, enjoyed a large milkshake, and then everything was right with the world.  Funny how things like that happen.

Well, I am off to bed.  No pictures today.  I took two of the landscape and wasn't really happy with them.  After the meltdown the camera never came out again.  Jeff won our little lottery here and was one of the 17 people who went to Arches National Park.  He said he took about 25 pictures.  I hope to look at them tomorrow and may put a couple up under today's entry.  Type to you tomorrow.

Tim