I was out the door at 5:30 and got to the summit at 8. It was 20km and 1000m but there were no crazy steep sections. At the top an old couple - probaly just a bit older than me - pulled over and gave me dirty looks for missing some deer in the woods while looking at my phone ... "Those kids and their damn phones!"
Decending I only got about 2km when I saw a guy coming up. I chatted with Raphael, a French student studying at Concordia. He had started in Detroit because of not being able to get into Canada. Zach and Natalie pulled up and joined in.
Fat guys are faster downhill and I was going great until I came to a red light. Construction had the road to one lane and you were supposed to wait for and follow a lead car. I waited for a few minutes and continued down. I figured I would not keep up to the cars anyway. I went slow in case I needed to get off the road for the cars coming up. Two thirds of the way down I stopped to chat to 3 Utah guys doing a large loop around the state. That's when the uphill cars finally come by. I knew that meant I had clear sailing the rest of the way down. I found out later the wait at the red light was 25 minutes. I made the right call.
After Torry the great new road turned into crappy old road with those jarring seams across the lane. It was a rough ride for a while. Pretty but a bit rough.
The road went through this really nice canyon and being mostly down hill it was very pleasant. I passed yet another cyclist and we chatted under some tree shade. Patrick from Pittsburg area started in SF and has been mostly camping. We are both recently retired and congradulated each other. Guess who showed up? Z&N - I need a short cut - stopped and their parents drove by.
Later at Mesa Market I chatted with Z&N's parents while they tried to get action shots of their kids going by.
The rest of the ride had some nice scenery but it was getting very hot and air conditioning was the most important thing, so I just pushed through to Hanksville.
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