Ride, Watch, Ride

Jolene and I went for a mountain bike ride today up American Fork Canyon and also caught the Tour of Utah going by.

We had planned to do a bigger ride, but we slept in because it was a bad night (the wind was noisy and woke up Kade twice and I couldn't sleep then Jolene couldn't sleep). The revised plan was to drive down the road to Cascade Spring and park where the Deer Creek South Fork trail crosses it then ride up and watch the Tour of Utah riders go by.

Upon unloading the bike we discovered that Jolene's front tire had gone flat so I threw a tube in it and off we went. It's still very green up there and the trail was in good shape - lots of hard-packed sections and the dusty parts weren't real deep. I enjoyed the climb.

Near the top we ran into Steve who was carrying some tools down the trail for a work project next Saturday (sign up and help). We chatted for a while then we heard a siren and knew the Tour must be coming through soon so we rode up the last 1/4 mile and hung out at the turnoff for Cascade Springs to watch.

The lead cars came by with some free-loading press guys - who is that in the black hat?



Soon the first cyclist came up, a Rock Racing guy (I'm pretty sure it's Michael Creed) solo off the front in the big ring.



Several minutes later (maybe even 5), a group came by. Then smaller groups and stragglers. I was surprised the pack was strung out so much - it took at least 15 minutes for them to all go by, maybe even 20 or more.



My fellow spectators - the riff raff these races attract. ;-)



After the racers went by we finished off the last little section of trail and headed out on the Ridge trail. Along the way we saw Team Holley. Then we went down Deer Creek South Fork back to the car. It was a good ride on a beautiful summer day.








Name This Thing

Hint: It has something to do with cycling.