Yesterday we drove from St George to Salt Lake City and we’re staying here for a couple nights since Heather has some business to do. I managed to get out for a great road ride today. I headed south on Wasatch Blvd and went up South Mountain. I tried pushing the hills and I kind of had to, since I only had a 39×23. Even when I raced this last year I had a 27-tooth rear cog, so today with the stiff headwind, I was crawling up it at 52 RPM! I figured it was great strength training!? The weather was just too nice to not ride; which was my original plan for this week after Valley of the Sun.

I headed down the fairly new, Suncrest Drive into Alpine. I meandered through Alpine from the back way and made it to the Highland Hwy. I decided that I was feeling good enough that I wanted to do more climbing so I headed up American Fork Canyon, part of the scenic Alpine Loop. This is a ride that Heather and I did often when we lived in Pleasant Grove. It’s a beautiful ride. But I knew I’d be hitting snow at some point, but hopefully, I’d be able to at least get to the Timpanogos Cave.

I made it to the cave and the road was still dry, but there was plenty of snow on the sides of the road. At about Mutual Dell, there was packed snow in the shady spots, but I kept going. Ultimately I made it all the way to the south side gate. This gate is closed in winter since they don’t do snow removal at the higher elevations, but the gate itself is at almost 7,000 feet above sea level. So I was getting my altitude training in today! I took some pictures, again with my Treo; it’s a great phone/PDA, but a stinky camera!

I had to be careful descending as there were quite a few rock slides on the road. While I was climbing I could hear rocks falling, so on the way down, I would pass those sections on the opposite side of the road, giving myself enough time to react.

I stopped in Alpine for a bathroom break and some water then proceeded up Suncrest Dr, the road I came down on. This side isn’t as steep as Traverse Ridge and with the tailwind wasn’t so bad, but I still could have used a larger cog. By the time I got to Draper, I was feeling the ride but wanted to make one last push up the hill on Wasatch Blvd. I tried to do a VO2 effort but it ended up more like a short LT. Oh, well, it was still a good 3 hour 45-minute ride.