Roll Me Away

“We never even said a word

We just walked out and got on that bike

And we rolled

And we rolled clean out of sight”

- Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band

Substitute “I” for the “we” and you pretty much have my routine every day. There’s generally no one to talk to so I just hop on the bike and start going.

After yesterday’s rough day, today was an intentional short day. Unfortunately, my short day started with a 4-mile uphill straight out of the parking lot. I knew it was coming, so I just put it in grind mode and worked my way up. The way it looked on the map was 4 miles up, 12 miles across, and 20 miles down. It seemed a very reasonable trade to me. It didn’t work out exactly that way. The 12 miles across was more like 12 miles of less severe ups and downs. The 20 miles down, was 9 and the last 11 was more or less flat.

But the 9 - oh the 9! I would do yesterday afternoon’s climb and this morning’s as well just to do that downhill. 8% grade for 9 miles. 10 switchbacks. 25mph speed limit in places, which I happily exceeded. Spectacular views, when I could dare to look. Even the mile-long uphill immediately at the bottom couldn’t spoil the fun. For anyone looking for the challenge, start at the Flaming Gorge dam and take 191 south toward Vernal. No turns. The whole thing is 28 miles. Park a car at the state park at the bottom. You won’t regret it.

Highest point on the trip so far. I thought it was the end of the climbing. It was not.

The payoff!

I stopped once on the way down

This section of Utah has many signs describing the geology and paleontology of the area. They were easier to read at 5mph going up the hill than 35mph going down.

Another Strava fail, but this one wasn’t a technology issue, it was operator technique. I paused it at the bottom of the downhill and forgot to resume it. Fortunately, I was also tracking on Ride With GPS.