Duchesne, Utah

After a great day in Park City, and not having to ride it was time to get back in the saddle and make our way to Duchesne, Utah. I rode today with Chris Stubel from Georgia Tech and Mike Jones from the University of Maryland. Today was the first time I had rode with Mike so I was excited to get to know another one of my teammates better. We were the second pace line to leave lodging, and not even 10 miles into our ride Chris got a flat tire. Chris is probably our most experienced cyclist so I made sure to give him a lot of crap for making us wait for him to change his flat tire.

Once we got going again, we started playing catch up. The crew had told us we had to ride a pretty fast pace to make rack point so we were riding pretty quickly. The most challenging part of the day was a mountain we had to climb. From start to finish the climb lasted about 10 miles and we increased elevation by 3000 feet. Once we got to the top it was an amazing feeling, and once at that point we were the highest we had been all trip. After getting to the summit of the mountain we enjoyed a great decline. My bike computer wasn’t working so I am not sure how fast I went, but Mike said he was going 51 mph and I was going quite a bit faster than him. It was a beautiful ride, and it made appreciate all the awesome places we have gotten to see thus far in the trip. Although not all of them have been as nice, it is great to see all types of environments. After 85 miles we arrived at lodging which was Duchesne High School. Once everyone arrived we were told not to shower, but to put on our bathing suits. This got the team very excited, and everyone was hoping we were about to go to a pool and relax after such a long day.

We all loaded up in the vans, and once I realized where we were going I got even more excited. We pulled up to Starvation Lake, a reservoir that is used throughout Duchesne County for many things. I was so pumped to get in the water when we got there. After doing a little swimming and playing some football the team was notified that we were also going to go tubing. Everyone had an absolute blast and the lake was much needed.

After the lake we had to rush back to lodging to change for dinner. We were meeting up with the Lions Club of Duchesne who have been sponsoring the Journey of Hope North Route for 4 years now. They made us a very hearty and delicious meal, which was nice after burning off so much on the bike. After dinner everyone went back to lodging and passed out. The combination of the sun while riding, and being out in the water all day really took it out of everyone, and it was very nice to lay down and get a good night of sleep.

Tomorrow we head to Dinosaur, Colorado. Three states down, nine more to go!