Boo! Ghost Town Century Ride

Conversation typically went like this - "Hey, there's a century ride next week" "And" "We should do it." "Okay". So Tri-Rich and I signed up. Actually, so did Sharla. She doesn't have a nickname yet but we'll give her one. TR and his wife were going to do the 50 mile section and I was going to do the full 104 miles. This ride was advertised as "a fun ride through some of Utah's historical Ghost Towns of Yesterear". Yeah, whatever. I never saw any ghost towns. Maybe I was just going too darn fast. Who knows. We got up early, had our oatmeal and headed over to Tooele (pronounced Too-ill-uh). After riding about 200 or 300 hundred feet together, I started off on my own. The ride was good but a bit windy. For supposedly a "mostly flat" ride I still clocked in over 5000 feet of climbing over the 104 miles. I stopped at Camp Floyd (the largest military installation in the United States) for lunch and continued on my way. Thanks to one of the numerous cattle guards, I lost my lid of my container holding my spare tire, tools, and MY PHONE! Yes, at some point I also lost my phone. Dang! But thanks to TR and Sharla as they went back and somehow FOUND the phone off to the side of the road next to one of the cattle guards. No way!

I'm not sure what was going on but around mile 85 or so my right knee and hip started to hurt. I mean REALLY hurt. I certainly wasn't going to stop out in the middle of nowhere. So I kept peddling. Riding by yourself is difficult. The funny part of the ride was shortly after that, this black Suburban rode up along side of me talking to me. I had my music cranked (yes, I was listening to my iPod) so I couldn't hear what they were saying. I simply smiled and nodded. The SUV continued to drive along side of me. What was their deal? Yes, I was going slow but dang git I was going to finish. Clearly, I was in a lot of pain and pretty much out of it because that SUV was TR and Shar. I had NO clue. Anyhow, I finished the last few miles and enjoyed a big plate of barbecue food. That makes 2 century rides this year. Way cool!