The Longest Ride

By: Ryan, on May 31, 2009

Yesterday I did the single longest continous ride of my life so far. It was also the single climbingest ride of my life so far.

I met up with Andrew at his house at 6:15 am yesterday morning for what I was told was going to be a 90ish mile ride with about 5500 feet of climbing. Seemed easy enough, but I came prepared with extra GU and Clif Bars. Andrew’s friend Rob and his girlfriend (who’s name I’ve forgotten) also showed up although they vowed to turn around earlier in the ride. At the end of the ride we had done close to 115 miles with about 8,200 feet of ascent. The closest to that I’ve done was at a 24hr mountain bike race where my bike failed, otherwise this might have been the second longest.

We started in Rose Park, which is in Northwest Salt Lake City. We rode up to Wasatch Blvd all the way down to Draper. We took Suncrest (a super difficult climb, both mentally and physically) to the mouth of American Fork Canyon and rode all the way up and over to Sundance Resort and back. The climb up Suncrest is about 3 miles of 10% grade with the wind constantly against you. The climb up American Fork is even harder. It’s roughly 14 miles of grade that vary between 6% and 12%. Once you get up to 7000 feet the grade mellows a little bit but the road still climbs another 1060 feet over about 4 miles. On the other side you come bombing down a narrow switchback road past Mt. Timpanogos and to the Sundance Resort. We stopped at Sundance and got Sandwiches from the grill. The woman making the food clearly took exception to the total clown show that was being put on by these 4 guys in lycra and put a lot of extra huff and grunt into taking our orders.

After Sundance it’s all downhill to Orem and flat back to SLC. Around mile 90 I started occasionally reminding Andrew that I hated him. Andrew’s extra effort on the hills really started to hit him as we got back into SLC. I found my second wind on the flats and found myself waiting for him for the first time the entire ride (maybe ever, he’s usually the patient waiter). We finally got back to his house at 6pm after having been in the saddle for 11.5 hours. What a ride.

Overall this was a great ride, with great peeps. I feel like I accomplished something pretty awesome.

Some of the gear I was using:

Garmin Edge 305 w/ HR and Cadence. Birthday Present.

Shoved in: cycling