Day 54 – BeaUTAHful Scenery

Dolores, Co to Moab, UT – 111 miles

Woke up at 5 at Dave and Linda’s to get on the road early.  The plan was to make it either to Monticello, about 55 miles, or Blanding, about 75 miles. Linda made some breakfast, we ate, I said goodbye, and I was on the road by 7.  Thanks Dave and Linda!

It was nice and cool in the morning.  The beginning of the ride was fairly flat.  After a couple of hours it started to get pretty hot.  I took a break to refill my water.  To stay cool I soaked my buff and long-sleeved under armour top in water and put them on.  It felt great!  Kept the sun off my skin and the evaporating water kept me cool.

As I approached the Utah/Colorado state line I started to feel a consistent bump related to the speed of rotation of my tires.  My Dynamics Engineering background came in handy to help pinpoint the source of excitation ;).   Took a look at the rear tire and sure enough it was out of true radially in one spot.  It wasn’t a huge problem, besides being annoying, and it was too hot to deal with it right there, so I decided to ride on.

I got to Monticello at around noon and decided to stopped for lunch to get out of the heat.  I ate and then the restaurant closed down at 2, so I found some shade directly outside where I could still get the wifi.

I YouTubed how to true a tire and found plenty of information on how to fix a lateral wobble, but a radial bump seemed more difficult to find info on.  I tweaked a few spokes to try to fix it.  I wasn’t feeling super confident in my wheel truing abilities and the next bike shop on my route was 400 miles away.  I sure as hell didn’t want to double back to Delores, so I made the decision to ride 55 miles north to Moab where there are loads of bike shops.  I think a part of me was looking for an excuse to head that way anyways, because I wanted to check out Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.

As soon as I decided to leave Monticello it got really dark and a storm cloud rolled through.  Dropped a good amount of rain and some dime sized hail on me – good thing I was wearing a helmet.

After the rain it was mostly downhill to Moab, which was great, but the whole time I was thinking about the fact that I would have to pedal back up all those vertical feet in the near future.  As I got closer to Moab I saw my first arch, Wilson Arch.  I’d never seen anything like it!  I ran into a guy who was on a road trip with his wife and two granddaughters.  He agreed to snap a photo for me.  Thanks Tim!

The terrain just kept getting more interesting from there as I continued to descend into Moab.

It started to rain again.  Not as hard as before, and it was actually really refreshing.  The sun was setting and a rainbow appeared off to my right over a large canyon as I was descending a huge hill.  Truly spectacular.

I rolled into Moab at around 9, exhausted, and it was getting dark quickly.  Started to think about where to sleep and riding around looking for a place to camp didn’t sound that appealing.  Found a hostel in town called the Lazy Lizard and decided to give it a go.  Really interesting place.  A very eclectic group of people.  Everything from foreigners who speak very little English to locals who seem to have made the place their home.  I was able to grab one of the last bunks they had available for the night.

When I arrived I met a German guy named Achim who was traveling around America for the first time.  We sat around at the picnic table talking and drinking a few beers, while I recovered from the ride.

I called it a night around 11 to get up early the next day, visit a bike shop in town, and see if I could get my wheel sorted out once and for all.