Friday we went on a great ride! Just under 100 miles! We started out with 6 of us (four others from my work and my brother Brock). All of them are doing the LOTOJA this Saturday (a 206 mile ride from Logan to Jackson Hole), so I just tagged along for the good ride. It was a blast! We all met at the Hogle Zoo at 7am and headed up. Here was our route: We started climbing up Emigration Canyon all the way up to the top of Big Mountain. Big Mountain is so steep, everytime I am in the middle of it I swear to myself that I am never going to do it again, but it's the best feeling when you make it to the top. Going down the backside through East Canyon was a blast! We just cruised! We got down and went around the lake and then continued going North all the way up to Morgan. The valley was just beautiful. We stopped at a grocery store and ate lunch. Food has never tasted so good! I had the best apple of my life! Then we kept going and got to the base of a really steap climb that goes up to Huntsville called Trappers Loop. This climb was killer, about 8 miles straight up. The worst part about it was that you could see so far ahead and it looked like the steepness was never going to end. It didn't, not for a LONG time! Then we cruised down to Pineview Resevoir and were going to head down Ogden Canyon. Thanks to Brock we decided to keep heading north and get in an extra 20 miles. So we rode up through Eden and had one more really steep climb to get into North Ogden Canyon. I was eyeing the dang canyon our whole ride up towards it and I was dreading it. We started climbing and I was just like, "No way! I can NOT do this! This is insane! So we're going up in our granny gears and it feels like the hardest gear in the world. All of a sudden I hear a loud "POP"! Tierney's tire blew! When your tire blows out, it's such a mental blow, especially when you're in the middle of a steep climb and 80 miles into a ride. Everyone else was ahead of us so I stopped and got off my bike. I look back and Tierney sticks out her thumb to a truck passing by and asks the guy for a ride to the summit! He gets out of his truck and throws her bike in the bed and I ran down and was like, "Let me in! I'm not training for the LOTOJA!" We were laughing so hard going up that hill, it was SO steep. We knew we were soon going to pass everyone else any second and couldn't decide if we should duck or cheer them on. Bad decision made, we cheered them on! The poor guys were just dying trying to get up that pass and there we were with big smiles on our faces bumming a ride. It was awful of us! They just looked up and shook their heads. So we got to the top and changed Tierney's tire out. Going through Ogden wasn't fun, but we finally made it to the Front Runner Station. We took the Front Runner Train back to Salt Lake which was great! It dropped us off right behind the Gateway and then we rode home. I think Abby's GPS watch clocked us at about 95 miles total. Way to go guys! Best of luck this weekend in your race!

Refueling at the Maverick! Our last stop till the end!

Here is our route, check it out! http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ut/salt-lake-city/700303765560