SR-138 and SR-112

Over the weekend, K Jo and I went to visit my parents in EC so she could participate in the Little Grand Canyon half marathon. At packet pickup the day before the race, she asked a guy standing at a table if she could borrow his pen to fill out her registration form. She then did a double take, grinned sheepishly and blurted, "I read about you in my magazine". She recognized the man as Dane Rauschenberg... see also here (you know you've made it when you have a Wikipedia article about you) who in 2006 ran 52 marathons in 52 weeks to raise money for the Mobile (Alabama) chapter of an organization called L'arche which benefits the mentally and physically disabled. He was featured in a running magazine that K Jo and I subscribe to and she recognized him from a photo in the magazine. He was in Price to run the half marathon that she was running and to promote and sign his book. I bought a copy and K Jo read about half of it aloud on the way home. I recommend it. We talked for about ten minutes about running, and my blog before K Jo and I had to leave and we chatted again on race morning where he won the Half marathon. K Jo ran a very respectable 2:15:49. I was so proud of her.

In a previous post, I talked about how I am trying to limit my riding in the Central Region as much as possible so as not to exhaust all of the State Roads here prematurely. Following suit, I headed to the Western Region today which includes Tooele County, so not too far from home. I also decided that I am still trying to pack on the mileage for training so I figured why not knock out two birds with one stone? Ride two state roads, get some significant mileage, and get one of those pesky less-than-ten-but-more-than-five-milers out of the way. I rode SR-138 and SR-112 today. I will start with SR-138 since it was first on my ride today.



SR-138 starts at the north shoulder of I-80 about 9 miles northish of Grantsville. It heads in a southish direction rising about 125 feet from where it started until it runs east through Grantsville where it plateaus, intersects with SR-112, then levels out about 50 feet below the city in a northwest direction finally terminating at SR-36 just outside of Stansbury Park at 20.4 miles.

I got up this morning and got ready for my ride which included fixing a flat front tire. I did all I could to check for burrs, thorns, etc in the tire and rim as to avoid a repeat flat, and another punctured tube, but could find nothing. I packed the car, loaded my bike and drove off to Stansbury Park in sunny, beautiful, calm clear weather. As I headed west on I-80, I looked around and saw something akin to this:


I thought... "aw crap". Now, take another look at the picture of the SR-138 sign at the top of the post, and notice the nice, clear blue sky. That is what I saw when I left my house. The more I rode, the more I saw of what you see in the picture directly above... wind... and storm clouds. As you can tell from the picture, this is no light breeze, but a full on make-you-want-to-vomit, no-fun-to-ride-in wind blowing from the south. As I was headed almost directly southwest for the first eleven miles of my ride, I was fighting for position on the road almost the entire time. The only relief came momentarily when I would be passed by a semi truck which cut the wind enough to suck me a full foot to the left. It was pretty scary, but more exhilarating. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion. I think they only reason I did not turn around right away (and I thought about it) was that I knew that eventually I was going to be riding with the wind which would give me an awesome push and some wicked speed. I stopped briefly on the way to Grantsville to snap a picture of a sign and to... answer the call of nature... and again IN Granstville to snap the flag picture. As I left Grantsville, I kept looking at the ominous storm clouds in the distance hoping that they would skirt to the west of the mountains and avoid me. Alas, it was not to be. The ride to the end of the highway was pretty uneventful except that I averaged about 35 mph for nine miles... No seriously I rode 9 miles in like 16 minutes, I was pretty surprised... Riding like that can play with your mind too. When I approached the end of the road, I thought, "Sweet, the wind has died down". Then I turned around, started riding and went, "oop, no it hasn't".


I fought the wind for the better part of an hour. About halfway back to Grantsville, somewhere around mile 25 (when it started raining lightly), I noticed that my front tire was a little squishy. Road bike tires run somewhere around 100 psi, which is not squishy. I decided to push forward for as long as I could debating whether to risk my CO2 cartridge on a punctured tube, or risk puncturing a new tube on who knows what. I opted for the former and at mile 27, refilled my punctured tube. I figured, it got me out to Stansbury Park, and 27 miles into the ride, it ought to last to at least Tooele where I may or may not find a bike shop. I finally made it into Grantsville amidst light rain. So lets recap: wind, rain and a flat tire. Could the day get any better? We shall see, on to SR-112.




Okay, before I start, I want to say something about the elevation profile. If you look between miles five and six, you will notice a small dip. That used to be a very LARGE dip, about 90 feet of dip. When I first looked, I thought no way, that can't be right, the road fell 90 vertical feet in a tenth of a mile? There has got to be some mistake. I removed the data points to make it look like it does, and thought about it. My GPS unit takes measurement of elevation in two ways, one through regular GPS, and two, through a barometric altimeter which uses air pressure to determine altitude. Anyway, the only explanation I could talk myself into was that it started raining pretty heavily while I was riding this road, and somehow the weather messed with the air pressure just enough to make my elevation profile record 90 feet lower than the actual elevation for the last 2 or 3 miles... I thought it interesting.

SR-112 starts just east of Grantsville on SR-138 and runs almost exclusively southwest for 8.6 miles. On the way it passes the Tooele army depot, the Miller Motorsports park and ends in Tooele at SR-36.

After passing through Grantsville, I stopped to get the picture of the SR-112 sign, ducked my head and forged on into the wind towards Tooele. I took a look at my computer. I saw that I had gone 32 miles in just over 2 hours. I thought, "If I can make it into Tooele in 40 minutes, I could get 50 miles in less than three hours. It was only 9 miles into Tooele and just under 9 miles back to my car with the wind at my back. Remember, I had previously traversed 9 miles in 16 minutes. The going was good at first. I saw a sign saying Tooele: 9, and was going about 15 mph, so I thought, sweet, about 30 minutes into Tooele. Then the wind picked up and I started riding 13 mph, no problem, then the rain came, and came, and came, and came. At around mile 37 (4 miles left to Tooele) all I could do was duck my head and glance at the road ahead to see where to go and to get a glimpse of the rain blowing at a 45 degree angle. It stung too... Oh and I was down to 10 mph now. My hopes of hitting my 50 in 3 were falling like the rain. On the way into Tooele, I saw a Tooele County Sheriff's cruiser speeding in the opposite direction and thought nothing of it. I forged on and on and eventually made it into Tooele. My tire was still holding up and I snapped a picture of the end sign. I waited at the light to make a left onto SR-36, and glanced at my computer. I noticed that I was at 41 miles with a time of 2 hours 40 minutes. "I'm gonna make it" I thought. As the light turned green and I pedaled on, the wind died. "NO, NO, NO! IT'S NOT FAIR". The stupid wind really plays tricks on your mind when you are riding in it. I kept going and noticed the rather large flag in the parking lot of a grocery store was flying pretty high and thought, "firetruck you wind!" (It's a quote from Dane's book) I was making REALLY good time and peaked at 38.1 mph on a small descent on my way back to the car. On the way back, I heard another siren and thought, that's weird. The truck passed me and I saw the word HAZMAT plastered on the back of the vehicle. "That can't be good" I thought. I found out later on ksl.com that a semi was blown over on I-80 in Tooele county with gusts of wind up to 65 mph (I was riding in that wind mind you). I can only assume both the emergency responders were for this particular incident. I raced as fast as my legs would spin averaging somewhere around 30 mph. I made a left onto SR-138 and passed my car at mile 49.9. I'm making 50. At mile 50, I stopped and the clock read: 2:57:27. I was pretty elated. I'm no Lance Armstrong, but I felt like a freaking stud. I walked back to my car, took off my helmet, and had to take a picture of this:

Helmet hair, take two. K Jo's favorite was this one:

If you look real close, you can see that my eyes and my skin are red from the pounding rain. I was feeling pretty good about myself because I hope to someday finish a Half Iron-man in less than 6 hours (1.2 mile swim in 1 hour, 56 mile bike in 3 hours, 13.1 mile run in 2 hours). If I can do 50 miles in less than 3 hours in hard wind and pounding rain, I can surely do 56 miles on a decent day in less than three hours. Today's ride as I said before was 50 miles. Rode it in 2:57:27 (yeah I'm a stud) averaging 16.9 mph, topping out at 38.1 mph. Now I am up to 11 state roads, 338.2 miles of total riding, 150.1 miles of state roads. Thanks for reading.


Chris.