Day 75…. Plan is to ride from Heber to Omer and find a coffee shop to chill at. There was a WebEx meeting scheduled for noon today. I left early to beat the heat and make sure I had time to prep for the meeting. Then entire ride today was through another pass into Omer. Easy day of only 26 miles. Mostly downhill. When I arrived into Omer a email came in and the meetin was postponed until Tuesday. Decision time. Either stop at 10:30 am and do nothing all day or push into Salt Lake.
The only answer to this for me was to continue riding into Salt Lake. 53 more miles to go and it was heating up. Since the day was to be short I didn’t eat a ton of food as usual. Nor did I pack ice and full bag of water. Should be an interesting day. On top of all of this the back tire had a slow leak. Which I have to pump up every 8-10 miles. I do give Salt Lake credit for the trail system. The entire trip was on a continual trail into Northern Salt Lake.
The first couple hours went by well. I snacked on the little food I had and drank what I could, hoping for a gas station soon. The first station I stopped at was out of ice and did not carry water. Weird.. Continuing on from here I had hoped for another gas station soon. The downside of riding trails all the time is they rarely have anything on them. Another hour went by before I ran into a gas station again. This one had 2 bags of ice left. I secured one of them. So refreshing in the 90+ degree heat. The trail seemed to continue on forever and the heat kept rising.
Getting close to the end, 2.7 miles left, I had another flat in the back. This time pumping it up was not going to work. The valve stem had completely detached itself from the tube. In the past I have seen the stem break but not detach itself from the tube. Finding a spot in the shape it was time to unload and repair the tire again. Once I get to the hotel it will be time to call around and get the tire repair and other maintenance that is needed.
While the day was over 9.5 hours in the sun, less than 700 calories all day, I actually felt great. The next few days will be down days getting the bike repaired and preparing to figure out Nevada.
