Month: June 2024

Back to the Utah ride: Day 4 in Bryce Canyon

My sister arriving at Red Canyon.

This is the way to ride Bryce Canyon National Park: Put your bikes on the back of the truck and drive it to Yovimpa Point, the end of the road. There you can hike on several trails: Riggs Spring Loop Trail, Under the Rim Trail (that looks the longest) or Bristlecone Loop Trail (appears to be the shortest).

Or, you can set your bike back on the road and cruise downhill for 18 miles. The High Plains Drifter, for sure. What a downhill ride! Brakes? What brakes? I did have to slow down when I turned off on the trail at Inspiration Point. All those curves to negotiate and kids to avoid. Still made it to Ruby’s Inn a half hour before the others.

Then it was out of the park and onto a bike trail that ran along Route 12 but did venture into the woods along the way to Red Canyon where we met up with The Spouses, our excellent SAG crew.

Bikes loaded, we were off to Zion National Park, where bicycling is not allowed in the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel that leads to the main part of the park. Until 2026, larger vehicles – RVs, trailers, etc. – can pay a $15 charge and go through the tunnel during hours when rangers are there to orchestrate alternating one-way traffic. After 2026, larger vehicles will have to find another way into the park. The National Park Service posted this on May 30, 2024:

“Beginning in mid-2026, the park plans to reroute vehicles that exceed 11’4” tall, 7’10” wide, 35’9” long, or 50,000 pounds to routes other than the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway (the road across Zion National Park). Vehicles that exceed these specifications can use existing alternate routes surrounding the park.”

Maybe that will make room for bicycles.

Bikes are loaded on the trucks, and we are waiting our turn for the one-way traffic through the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel

Seattle 44, LA 12: A score that might have been

Mooneyham on an “almost” try. Photo by Punkus Arnett

These names would of, should of, could of been added to the list below: Ina Futi, Jackson Zabierek and Conner Mooneyham (twice over).

And the list below — Dan Kriel, Pago Haini and Cameron Orr – are the Seattle Seawolves who scored tries in the 29-12 victory over Los Angeles Sunday at Starfire Stadium.

The list above are the hard-luck Seawolves who crossed the LA goal line before something bad happened. Futi didn’t quite control the ball as he dived over and tried to touch down for the try. Zabeirek because his score became a penalty try when Reegan O’Gorman, who might have thought he held up Zabierek’s try, found out he had collapsed the maul and received a yellow card. In the last three minutes of the game, Mooneyham had two tries disallowed. He chased down his own kick ahead as it skittered to the back of the LA try zone. Did he touch it down before it got there? He thought so. The ref did not. A scrum to La, then a ruck and the LA’s passes had the ball wobbling over the LA back line until Mooneyham reached up for what looks like an interception. But the ball dribbled down his leg and maybe off his foot for a kick, which he fields and runs to score in the corner. The ref rules it a knock on. No try.

Futi’s almost try opened what looked like another 10-try victory similar to the one against Utah two weeks ago. Especially since Kriel scored his try 30 seconds later on LA’s goal line drop out after Futi’s near miss. Monate Akuei sprung Kriel with a great no-look, across-the-chest off load.

Then things slowed down. Half ended 10-5 with a Mack Mason penalty kick for the Seawolves and an unconverted try for LA off a maul

Seattle’s penalty try came at the 46th minute, and LA answered with a try twenty minutes later. It wasn’t until the last 10 minutes of the game that the Seawolves got serious about going after bonus points with a four-try win. Haini benefited with a try after a strong maul off a lineout (with the backs Kriel and Mooneyham joining in), and Orr did as well after a quick penalty at the 78th minute. Minute later, the game ended, 29-12 for Seattle.

This one by Cameron Orr counted. Photo by Punkus Arnett

You wonder what the score would have been without the TMO, the television monitor official. Would Futi and Mooneyham’s tries have counted? (Zabierek’s counted as a penalty try without Z getting credit for it.)

Overall, we’re in favor of the TMO reviews, but it has changed the game from when a single ref helped out by Just Anyone who volunteered to run touch controlled the game. What will happen when real live tracking is added to the game, where a microchip is attached to the rugby ball? Could the ball become the referee? With an added live streaming to announce the decision? “Mooneyham was outside the try zone. Sorry, no try.” Would William Webb Ellis recognize that game?

We may be ahead of ourselves here.

On with the Utah bike ride: Day 3

Day 3, Boulder, Utah, to a wide spot in the road: We faced two of the three Hs in the H-E-double LL of bike touring: Hills and head winds. Fortunately, Heat left us pretty much alone. We made 48.7 miles of the planned 66 miles.

We started with a climb up to the Hogsback, a great downhill ride with drop offs on both sides of the road, curves and lots of speed if you chose it, which I did. Another sonic boom, I’m sure.

The drop off on these shoulders is hundreds of feet

Onward to the town of Escalante, Utah, for a Gatorade and potato chip break. Anne warned us that the long downhill we had just experienced would be met with the eventual long uphill. But she forgot to mention the head winds.

More uphill

Three of us have electric-assisted bikes, and the miles they can cover on one charge is more dependent on elevation than mileage. They fell short today. My bike was down to one red bar, which doesn’t translate into anything until it starts blinking. Then it’s time to hurry to the end. My sister’s new bike said she had five miles before she was on her own, falling well short of the planned 66 miles and Tropic, Utah, and the pizza joint there, which turned out to be closed. Some wise person pulled over to a wide spot in the road and declared today’s ride over. We called in the SAG trucks, who carried us to Bryce Canyon National Park. Hooray for The Spouses!

Bryce Canyon hoodoos

A pleasant ride through Utah, thanks to Jason

“Pleasant” is not the usual word I have used to describe previous bike rides in this blog, but our recent ride in Utah was very pleasant. Organized by Jason, our niece/nephew in law, who plotted the course, found the hotels to stay in and chose restaurants to eat in. The four bike riders had wonderful SAG support, AKA “The Spouses” or Don and Kathy.

After five days of riding, Kathy and I split off to visit National Parks while the rest of the family returned to Salt Lake City. More on those National Parks in a future post, but first, the bike ride:

Fish Lake to Capital Reef Lodge, near Torrey, Utah. When I finished riding the 40-mile route, I looked at my odometer to see how long it took: 2.5 hours. Impossible. With my usual pace – even with my electric-assisted bike – of 10 miles per hour, this could not be. But lots of long, downhill coasting shortened today’s ride. My sister, who has now ridden in all lower 48 states and is migrating to Canada routes this summer, called it “the fastest I have ever ridden 40 miles.” Three of us have electric assisted bikes, and Anne, our niece, has no need for any assistance to stay up front of the pack.

Coming down the hill from Fish Lake

A quick ride tomorrow? Probably not. Jason warned us that we climb 3700 feet before the downhill into Boulder, Utah.

Torrey to Boulder, Utah: Jason was right. It was a day of climbing, up to 9,600 feet of elevation, and Jason forgot to supply oxygen bottles. But soon after that, a downhill stretch of almost 10 miles. My odometer does not record the top speed reached during a ride, a big disappointment on a day like this one where I may have broken the sound barrier. Six and eight percent downhill grades will do that.

On the long, slow way up, I kicked my electric assist up to “turbo,” the top end assistance (eco, touring and turbo) on one of the steeper hills, my first venture into turbo flight. I pedaled a few times, and the assist stopped assisting. Off my bike to investigate when engineer Anne, who the night before had passed a test online to earn her Arctic engineering credentials for Alaska, came by and prescribed the highly technical way to repair the assist: Turn it off. Turn it on. Off. On. Then it worked fine. A mystery to me for why it stopped. Shorted out? Overheated? A climb to far for Reddy Kilowatt? Thank heavens he came back to help as it would have been an unpleasant hill for me.

After the ride, I took a nap, but Kathy went off to visit a slot canyon,

(To be continued)