Day 22 Salt Lake City to Duchesne 144.5km Uphill 5,000 Downhill no elevaton info

Up ‘n at em by 5 a.m. The park has nicely left a truck at the top of the hill so we can throw our gear bags in here and walk down and then up to the gear truck. Barb is on sweep today, so she is not riding with us. The group started out with Gerry, Pete, Bert S, Andy, Louie, Jake, John, Carl and myself. We have no elevation chart today, either it was just too scary for us to look at or the story that Ed is sticking to is that when he drove thru this area last winter the road was closed so he could not GPS it. Either way, the cyclists are a tad worried this morning.

The climb started 10km into the ride, and we continued up for around 15km. The last 7 km where at a 8% grade. The group that we left with this morning quickly split up. John and Carl where way ahead of us and the rest of us just took the hill at whatever we were comfortable with. I was in my granny gear for the entire hike up. Pete and Jake would pass me everyone once in a while and then I’d pass them. It was a slow climb. At times I was only going 6km especially when I was climbing the 8% grade. A number of cyclists are experiencing difficulty with the high altitude and cannot breathe. Teresa is one of these cyclists. She has strict orders from both the nurses here in camp not to ride for the remainder of the week, or she may end up in the hospital. This is a hard pill for Teresa to swallow because she so badly wants to bike it all (as do we all). Remember her in your prayers as she faces this difficulty.

Everyone had their photo taken the summit; Wolf Creek Pass. 9,485 ft AWESOME!!!!

The ride down was 20km long. I was in the highest gear and when I couldn’t peddle any more I got down into a crouch position and coasted. Top speed 68.7km. We coasted right into a small village called Hannah and ordered coffee with pie. Mmm good. I understand that they were run off their feet later in the day. One of our cyclists even stood in as a waitress; poured coffee, served pie, and cleared off the tables. I imagine they did a pretty good business today. Rita and Bill Wybenga

We are now ½ done our ride for the day. We went thru one more climb and again the group was separated. John was riding with Bert when they heard a loud BANG! Bert had blown out his tire. They managed to fix it with a rubber patch but it only lasted 3 more km. Thankfully someone biked by that had a spare tube on them and they could repair it properly. Most of us met up again at Cory’s SAG…UT-40. Cory was handing out cookies. One way to win the most popular SAG driver!

When we left Cory’s we had approx 30km to go. I left with Andy and Dave Geerlings (he just started today). Shortly into this portion of the ride I took the lead only to get a gust of head wind, so I called for a ‘mule’ and Dave just happened to be right behind me. He took the lead and we sailed at around 44km for most of the way in. It was very, very sweet.

Tonight we are staying at the Park/Fairgrounds. Today it was cloudy for most of the day and the sun was at it’s strongest at around 5:30pm. We have another long day tomorrow, so I’d best get off to my tent and organize my stuff for tomorrow.

P.S. Louie saw a moose today, I only saw a deer. He wins, his animal was bigger!

Later, Cynthia
Average speed today 22.6km Total km biked 146.5 Actual time on the bike 6:28:06