Sunday, July 26: Another early start today, but at least I was staring at a really mellow ride today, and that really felt good. So based on the weather forecast for today, high near 100, and probably the hottest day in a string of like the next 6 days, I had decided last night to get this thing done really early before that heat even got to 80. Thus, we were up at 5 AM. Since we’re staying here at the Salina Super 8 a second and third night, we didn’t have nearly the gear to reload into the van, and we were on the road at 6:45 AM. We were at yesterday’s end point, exit 86 on I-70 west, at 7:15, and I was on the bike at 7:30. 

So my strategy today was simple….ENJOY! This segment was done on what’s called a “Frontage” road, a road that parallels a freeway or toll road. Out west they’re very prevalent due to the long spaces between towns and cities. These road enable locals to get off and on the freeway from ranches, National Forest recreations areas, and BLM lands in 10-15 mile increments along the freeway, this rather than having to drive 50 miles to go 10. And this particular frontage road was just perfect for me, for it enabled me to ride non-stop on gravel without all the hassles of route support and riding 27 miles to make 8 miles progress as I did yesterday. Nope, usually the frontage road just hugs the freeway all the way. 

I considered this ride today my well deserved dessert for a pretty hard couple of days riding. And the icing on the cake was the fact that of the 34 miles I had to ride, about 31 were big-time descent miles. I mean this is just a bobsled run down along Salina Creek in Salina Canyon. I was anticipating this ride as far back as February, and now here I am, with 10.5 states behind me and this puppy in my periscope sight.

The temps was really wonderful, like about 62 degrees with a wind out of the west, and I had to put a polypro long sleeved top on to take the edge out of the wind. I got going on this road, simply called Frontage, and started climbing, and I do mean climbing. This was a build-up to the very top of the canyon, and I, not a smidgen warmed up, felt sluggish as I peddled up this long 3-mile climb up a gradual pitch at 6-7 mph in the middle ring. Hey, if that’s the toughest part of the day, I’m totally on board, this compared to navigating through sand and rock gardens for hrs on end! So I just noodled up this climb, taking me time and enjoying the scenery. 

Made the top and that’s when the long sleeved top came off and the fun began. It was just this great “over the top of the roller coaster” kind of feeling as I began descending. Hit the big ring and just peddled lightly, taking in the sights as I careened down the canyon. The frontage road would change from the south side of the freeway to the north side by going under the freeway every now and then. A couple of these tunnels were just filled to the brim with purple martins (or something similar) with their mud nests clinging to the wall-roof interface. As I’d ride in these birds would just flood out in a virtual cloud of flapping wings. They almost looked like bats flying out of a cave when a person invaded their darkness. 

I really didn’t need a support stop on this segment, but just to be safe we scheduled a stop at exit 73 and exit 63 on I-70. So at the first stop, 13 miles in at exit 73, I just stopped long enough to tell Judy everything was good and to drive on to the next stop. This was only one of two sections of this frontage road where there were asphalt section. I hit it for 1 mile prior to meeting up with Judy, and was able to ride some good berm down to our meeting point. After this the pitch of the descent really increased, to the point to where I had to feather the brakes occasionally so that I wouldn’t wash a wheel in the thick, loose gravel. 

Matter of fact when I finished this ride I’d made a suggestion to Judy about me taking her back up to the top to do this ride, but it was the loose gravel issue that kind of had her feeling not so good about doing the ride. And I couldn’t lie to her and say all was just a big party. I mean you really did have to have a soft touch on those bars as you navigated through the gravel on this section. Any twitchy moves on the front wheel could wash that thing easily…and I was rolling through this stuff with a 2.4 front tire, not some thin little 26er 1.75 like Judy has!

But man was this fun. I went through these two big rock cut tunnels and was just flying down mountain. Had to really slow it down for a very sharp 90 that led into a concrete tunnel under the freeway and then up to what I call a little “kicker” climb in the little ring up to some good elevation again. This thing had to go up a sharp pitch for a couple hundred feet of gain. Then it did another roller coaster descent back down mountain. Met Judy at exit 63, and again just motioned her to head back to the motel. 

I descended the final several miles, and by this time was in a totally different environment, having gone for 8K up in the mts down to just over 5K down into the high plateau dessert region of Salina. The last 3 miles of this frontage road is asphalt and is called Old Hwy 10. I got on some ATC track at that point and paralleled the road for a couple miles at that point, then I jumped on some OHV tracks that took me above Old Hwy 10. These led me back to a couple sections of really shaky, rocky junk, where I opted to hike-a-bike the descents, that rather than do a potential series of cartwheels down while fixed to the bike. Once I got down to road level again, I crossed Old Hwy 10, jumped back on this OHV (Off Highway Vehicles) track, the Paiute Trail, crossed Salina Creek and rode back to the motel. It was pretty cool that the trail took me right back to the motel. This is my start for tomorrow. 

That was my day - 34 miles of riding with just over 1K of elevation gain. I decided to make that my day, a gift to both myself & Judy. I really have to take a closer look at my route out of here, where I’ll be using some of that Paiute Trail that I rode today, so I have to coordinate the support on this pretty complicated next several segments. I have it down on paper, but once you’re out here, it’s a whole different story on how to do it. What I’m trying to do is X over the Pahvant Range to the west of Salina using these OHV trails, and instead of taking a chance on a mega gonzo nasty long day tomorrow, I will be breaking it up into another easy day on Monday with an approach into the mts, and then on Tuesday I’ll ride across the mts for a moderate to long day of motocross type riding. 

So anyway, we started early and finished early today. Judy wanted to sight see in town, which we did, and it turns out the town is no bigger, actually it is littler than Green River. So we came back to the motel and watched the thermometer rise! No, not really, Judy is reading and watching movies while I work. I’ll be going out to do a little recon with the van to shore up these OHV track, because this place is a maze of OHV trails. This is a OHV mecca down here, and this Paiute and Gooseberry trail system is nationally recognized. Today being Sunday, is not a good day to do any of my long distance OHV riding, as there is likely to be much more traffic. Tomorrow and Tuesday will work much better. 

Ok, so the next thing up is what I’ve been telling some folks privately over the past 3 weeks. And that’s that I will not have enough time to finish the American Dirt trip this summer. Turns out that I’d budgeted 3 months to do this trip, both for myself and for Judy. We each have obligations in August that we have to be home for. We’d planned to be back first week of Aug, and I just cannot change that since we’d made those plans many, many months ago.

I kind of knew this was going to be the outcome way back at the beginning of July when I was fighting my way across KS. At that point I’d needed to make it through each of KS, CO, UT, NV and OR in about 7 to 10 days each, depending on the state, to be able to finish the trip by August 1st. Well, I came nowhere close to that. Colorado alone took over 2 weeks. I mean in my trip itinerary booklet I’m working on Day 46 for today, so that shows you how far off of schedule I am. Hell, today we’re at day 82 or 83 I think. 

Too many things kind of got us off track here, weather being a big one. But I have to be honest, I totally overestimated what I thought I could do each day. Some of the days on the itinerary, like going through KS, I’d estimated doing nearly 100 miles/day. What that  taught me was that I ain’t the spry young punk I was 10 years ago. I just cannot recover as fast, and I just cannot do the heavy volume I used to be able to do. Hate to admit it, but it’s fact. Shoot, I think my best day in KS for this trip was 90 miles, and that was unusually high compared to the rest of the days. So just as much of this off-schedule issue is my fault, as it is the weather’s fault. 

Now that’s NOT to say it’s over. It’s not by any means. I will finish what I started. And believe you me, I wish more than anything I could get this thing off my hit-list this summer. But I’m going to have to finish this thing up in early summer of 2016, starting it up again in early to mid May, and finishing it up in June. At this point, as tough as this is from a riding, support and logistical standpoint, I don’t even know if I could get this done by the end of this August. And that’s the truth. I know for sure that OR is going to be outrageously difficult what with a gazillion BLM and logging roads that I have to negotiate. 

So I would love to give all of you an end to this thing this summer, but it’s just not in the cards. Both Judy and I have to go back to our real lives, jobs and responsibilities. I’m kind of looking at this now as a thing I have to breath life back into next spring. And I’m more bummed out for those of you who have lived this thing through my blogs each and every day, than I am bummed out for myself. I mean it’s all of you who give me the motivation to keep plugging away when I’m too sore, to keep blogging when I’m too tired, and to keep a good attitude when things are going poorly. I mean it’s analogous to investing yourself in a cable or TV series, only to have the series take a hiatus for the summer, and to start back up again in the fall. I get it.

So with all that being said, we’ve 5 more days of me trying to get as far as I can in UT before we shut it down on July 31st to begin our drive home to Ohio. I really want to thank each and every one of you for your support and encouragement for all these days. And I make this promise to both you & myself: American Dirt WILL have a finish. 

Until tomorrow, take care all………Pete