GeoCyker: Day 15 - Milford to Cedar City

Wednesday, June 07, 2017

Today was our last day of riding before a scheduled one-day break in St George. We would ride the 55 miles from Milford down to Cedar City, where Tracy would be there to pick us up and drive us the 50 miles down to St George. The plan was for her to drive us back up to Cedar City early Friday morning the 9th, and we would continue the 2nd half of the ride to Pueblo, Co.

We left Milford at about 6:30 am after a breakfast at the local diner, where we saw Dean again. He had a flat 75 miles northward up to Delta planned for his day. I forgot to mention that he owned a Chocolate store in Portland, Maine called Dean's Sweets. Our early start was because we were very concerned about forecast strong southerly winds, as our route was basically southward all the way to Cedar City. The winds were expected to be 5-10 mph early in the day, but really pick up to 25-30 mph by afternoon, as they did yesterday.

Another obstacle today was our last two Basins and one Range. Today's climb was about 1600 ft over an unnamed pass in the Black Mtns at about mile 25, then it was downhill, then flat, finishing with 500 ft of uphill into Cedar City. This is a fairly easy profile compared to most previous days.

The winds were light early on and not a real issue until were turned eastward about 3 miles before the small town of Minersville. Yes, today we actually had some civilization along our route. This 3 mile section was a preview of the rest of the day, with a strong headwind, which would soon rotate around to a more southerly direction. In Minersville we stopped at a gas station, whose owner used to ride bikes and ran a bike shop in California. However, he had a knee replacement a while back, but it wouldn't cooperate with cycling so he had to stop. We didn't ask what brought him to Minersville.

We were pretty tired from the many efforts of the previous days, so the climb up to the pass at 6570 ft seemed as if it took forever. Then the run-in to Cedar City, with the increasing headwind was even worse as we were pedaling hard and barely holding 10 mph. Just before Cedar City, we saw and talked with a young couple heading the other way. They were riding from LA to New York and had seen Dean, who was riding a similar route, few days before. They wore no helmets and carried a light load; so they were likely moteling it. Of all the riders we encountered, to me they seemed the least prepared.

It was after this short stop that Ian told me that he needed to end the Tour in St George. I agreed. I was kind of expecting this, and to be honest, I was also seriously considering the same thing. I know Ian was really missing his 4 young kids and his wife and they were missing him. Lieve was getting very busy at work as it is Planning and Budget time. She was not having enough time for the kids. I was missing Tracy, and she was likely missing me even more as she was at home, at least I was out seeing and doing new things.

We continued struggling into the wind and made it to a Love's truck stop on the edge of Cedar City, where I called Tracy, who was expecting us a few miles further into Cedar City. It was sure nice to see her. We averaged 11.2 mph for the day, over 54 miles.

Besides the family, Ian and I are also tired and sore, which a single rest day in St George was not likely to solve. The cycling was much harder than we expected it would be. We had pushed 70-80 lbs bikes over 800 miles and 38,000 ft vertical in two weeks. During the last week in Nevada, we climbed over 11 significant mtn Ranges (and a few minor ones) and traversed as many Basins. To compound things, the first day of the 2nd half of the ride out of Cedar City is very daunting; consisting of a 5000 ft climb up to Brianhead/Cedar Breaks in only 25 miles.

There will be other chances to complete the ride, or do other rides. However, I'm sure that looking back a few months from now, we will wish we had continued. However, I think we made the correct decision.

Mike