Day 0: Final Tune Up and Reunions

Since I wasn't able to find this sign last year, I convinced the hotel van driver to stop by the side of the road and let me take a picture of this.  "Life Elevated" is the city's new slogan.

Hubris:  noun  excessive pride or self-confidence.   More on that later.

I checked into the hotel near Salt Lake City Airport just as the riders were coming in from their long day on the Salt Flats.  Three of the four ride leaders from last year are back this year.  One by one, I got hugs from them all.  They were so glad to see me and it did, a bit, feel like a homecoming.

Coming back to the hotel, this is the view of the Wasatch Mountains, host of the recent US Winter Olympics.  We'll take a run at them again in a couple of days.

Later at dinner and the ride rap (the follow-up group discussion after each day's ride), I got to meet many of the other riders on this trip.  And after that, I got to work with our ride mechanics as they put together my bike.  It came through the trip with a couple of dents and dings, but I think it'll be fine.

This is the money shot of the Great Salt Lake.   Filled with islands and all kinds of waterfowl, it really is beautiful.

And the facts…nothing grows in this lake except bacteria, algae and brine shrimp (yes, all those little guys in your fish tanks come from here!)  Almost as salty at the Dead Sea and 8x more salty than the ocean.  

Today, I got a chance to take the bike out for a spin.  My initial idea was to retrace a fair amount of the ride leg I didn't complete last year.  However, when talking with Gene and Jane, two of the ride leaders, they suggested otherwise.  Not only was going back on Route 80 not a good idea to do unassisted, they said, but there was also a lot of road construction in the direction of me riding back out there before coming back in towards Salt Lake City.  So I decided to ride the last 10 miles of last year's ride, plus visit the Great Salt Lake Park that we circumnavigated last year.  All in all, about 25 miles.  Enough to do a "shakedown cruise" on my bike, but also to see something new.

Now, back to that bit about hubris.  On the way out from the hotel, I rode along the frontage road that parallels Route 80.  It turns out that nearly 50 years ago, that same frontage road was the actual highway that went all the way from Salt Lake City to San Francisco.  A lot has changed over the years out west.  It's the same thing with both Route 66 as well as the Lincoln Highway, a road system built to go all the way from California to New York which opened in 1913 (trivia note:  it was the first official memorial dedicated to President Lincoln -- the Lincoln Memorial wasn't build for another seven years).

Sorry for the factual detour there.  Anyway, back on the frontage road, I was checking out all my gears and feeling for anything out of the ordinary.  As I got about five miles into the ride, I was feeling great.  My bike felt good.  And I was cruising at 16 or 17 miles per hour.  As I looked to my left, there were semi's rolling along Route 80.  The mountains were on my left and the Great Salt Lake on my right.  I was in a groove.  My speed was now hitting 18 or 19 miles per hour.  Right there, I felt it.  I thought to myself…"I'm home."  It all felt right.  It all felt as though I was back and never had left the ride.  

I got to the park and was able to walk along the salt flats as well as ride up to the visitors center and find out some more facts about this fascinating body of water.  Turns out it's not a great time right now for the Great Salt Lake.  The current drought has taken its toll.  The water level of the lake is the lowest in recorded history.  To my surprise, as I rode up towards the visitors center, I noticed a marina  filled with small to mid-sized sail boats.  But I also noticed no sailboats on the water.  Was sailing big on the lake?  Absolutely, said the Park Ranger.  Just not right now, she added.  The water levels are so low (average depth of the lake is only 13 feet) that many boats can't get out.

On the way back to the hotel and feeling like I owned the world, I kicked into my big ring and was now running at 20 or 21 miles per hour.  I was riding with a revived sense of place.  The sounds of the tractor trailers blowing down the highway.  The sights of mountains and all the wildlife in the area.  The feel of the dry, hot air all along the route.  This all felt right.  

While there had been a bit of a wind coming out of the hotel complex, there wasn't much riding down towards the lake.  A couple of miles into the return ride, it was the same thing.  I was cruising.  And then it happened.

Out from the South, a heavy wind started to blow.  More a crosswind than one head-on.  But intensely powerful.  And it wasn't a gradual wind.  It came on like a freight train.  Bam! One minute, I'm pumping and riding high with my speed in the low 20's.  The next minute, I'm downshifting to try and keep my bike on the road.  The winds were so amazingly strong that I was actually tilting my bike to the right just to keep it into the wind.  

In a matter of twenty minutes, I had gone from a real sense of euphoria and renewed confidence to a rough reminder that this will never be as easy as I'd like.  Mother Nature, the big boss in the sky, whatever the cause for the sudden change in the weather; it was a good reminder before the ride starts tomorrow that no matter how much I think I can do, there's always another challenge just up the road.  Good lesson at just the right time.  (Half an hour after getting back to the hotel, the winds got worse, causing trees to bend sideways, as a strong, but quick summer storm -- complete with microbursts -- blew through.)

Tomorrow the current riders continue their efforts.  Tomorrow begins for me.  Looking forward to jumping back in.  We're headed South to Provo.