SR-111

We are headed to EC this weekend so K Jo can do another half marathon. She worked this morning and since I didn't really feel like leaving her alone at my parent's house, I did a ride this morning and headed to SR-111.

SR-111 starts at SR-48 (New Bingham Higway). It heads slightly north for the first few miles curving to the north west and eventually heads straight north into Magna. Most of it is downhill and it ends at SR-201 after 10.6 miles. Along the way, it passes the junctions for SR-173 (5300 S) and SR-171 (4500 S). Pretty boring, huh?

If I had to sum up this ride in one word, it would be disappointing. I started out my ride from my townhouse and headed to 7800 S which eventually turns into New Bingham Highway. When I hit SR-111 I took a picture of the cool end sign, which is different from all the signs I have seen before, and headed North. I was pretty excited about riding this one because I had ridden sections of this road South of SR-48 and it was a lot of fun to ride. From SR-48 to SR-173, which is almost 6 miles, there is only one section that has a shoulder wider than one foot, and that section is less than a mile long. The rest of it is VERY narrow. I didn't think that there would be much traffic on this road either because it is pretty remote, but there are a lot of big semi-trucks that run this road. Add to all this the fact that the road is posted 55 mph. So what do we have here, big semis going 55 mph, narrow shoulder with dirt/gravel to the side, less than 100 feet of elevation change up and down (meaning you can't really get going that fast), for 6 miles... imaging riding a bike on a tight rope with elephants stomping and trumpeting on your left side for 30 minutes... that's how I felt riding today. After being buzzed by a dozen cars and trucks, I just decided to risk it and ride in the dirt, which actually wasn't to bad except when I hit the dirt on a downhill going 25 mph. I tell you, mountain biking in the dirt that fast is no big deal, but riding with skinny, slick tires, gives a pretty high pucker factor.

(Pucker Factor: Tension caused by high stress during a difficult or dangerous situation. So named because your sphincter tends to tighten up or "pucker" involuntarily during such times)

Thankfully, once passing SR-173, the shoulder widened to five or six feet and it was a good downhill grade all the way to the end of the route. I headed immediately East to 8000 W, turned south and made my way (on roads with great big wide shoulder and bike lanes) to the Jordan River Parkway where I headed north until I got off near 5300 S and headed to K Jo's office. She was just finishing up, so we headed home together. All in all, today's ride wasn't too bad except for that one section of the state highway. Working on this project has been a very good learning experience giving me great insight on what roads are good for riding in the Salt Lake Valley, and which ones should be avoided. Today's ride was 42.8 miles. I rode for 2:26:57. Top speed was 38.7 mph, average speed 17.4 mph. With SR-111 being 10.6 miles my totals to this point are 121.1 miles on 9 state roads, total riding on "state road" days: 288.2. OH I forgot to mention, a few weeks ago, I went online and bought a Road ID. It came in the mail on Monday. Here is a picture:

Basically it has my name, and where I live, but on the back there is a number that can be entered in www.myroadid.com and it gives any medical personnel who may have to help me all of my medical, personal, and emergency contact information. Anyway there isn't much to see on SR-111 except for vast tracts of farmland and Magna, UT, so not a lot of pictures on this post. Thanks for reading anyway.


Chris