Ride 89 Day 7

105 miles, 4,715 feet of climbing

We started this morning at the Utah border next to Bear Lake. It was still dark. Adam Olson, my boss at the Liahona, joined me for the hill climb up to Logan Canyon. It was a beautiful morning. As we climbed above Bear Lake, the sun came up. It was gorgeous.

Adam turned back at Beaver Creek Lodge. I bundled up and continued down the canyon. It was a beautiful morning and there wasn’t much traffic at all.

Eli Lucero, from the Herald Journal, caught up with me in Wellsville and took some pictures for the paper. He had been working there back when I was an intern. I switched out kits (since I was at the halfway point for the day) and continued up Wellsville Canyon.

My legs felt pretty sapped by this time but I continued to the summit where I enjoyed a long, fast descent down to Mantua (that’s pronounced Mantaway for you non-Utahns).

I turned onto the famous Fruit Way between Brigham City and North Ogden. Annie drove ahead to Ogden to talk to Mercury Cycling about the chipped wheel I had. For some reason the phone had been disconnected and they hadn’t been answering emails, but the guy who answered the door (I feel bad, I didn’t get his name) told her to send me in and they had a crash-replacement program that would take care of the wheel. I took a 30-minute break and Annie headed for home with the kids. I soon had a new rear wheel on my bike and I was ready to roll.

Except for the mysterious ticking noise coming from my crankset.

All morning my bike had been ticking. I think it was a creaking in the crankset. Anyway, I stopped by The Bike Shoppe, since they were on my route. They found that the chain was stretched and needed replacing. That surprised me because I had replaced the chain in September. Nate, the guy who was working on my bike, explained that they needed to be replaced every 1,500 to 2,000 miles.

Since I’ve put over 800 miles on my bike in the past week, I can see the problem.

Anyway, He changed out the chain, I bought a small bag to carry more food in, and Nate said the cost of the chain and the work was a contribution to our ride, so kudos to the Bike Shoppe. They put me back on the road really fast.

About that time, I got a text from Mike Gerrard, who said he was waiting to ride with me. I told him where I was and when I got to 193, he and his son Tanner were waiting for me.

Now, I have to say that we deviated from US 89 here because the Utah Department of Transportation has been redoing the road between Farmington and 1-84. This has been one of the most challenging parts of my ride. I have revised and revised and revised the route to accommodate closures and detours. I have been watching with bated breath, hoping that the bridge over Antelope Drive would be open so I could stick close to the road. But I had an alternate route. But then two weeks ago, just before I left for Montana, I found out that even though Antelope still wasn’t open. They were tearing up the other road. (I don’t know why they can’t open one part before closing the other, but I digress.)

As I was riding west on 193, Mike and Tanner caught up with me. We flew down Church Street and Fairfield. This was spectacular after fighting headwinds most of the day. As we reached the park where I had planned to end the day, many of our neighbors had gathered to cheer me on in this endeavor. It was a great ending to a nice day.

Now I’m at home writing this and trying to prepare for tomorrow, but part of me is like, “We’re home, so we’re done with this adventure, right?”

To which I respond with a paraphrase of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

The house is lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.