I’ve only been in Park City for one day and I can say I really like this town. I’ve raced here a bunch off-road, but not in the last decade. Man, has this town chanced a bunch since then. Mainly by growth. It is amazing how much more is here. Deer Valley is jammed, as is Park City. The MTB network on the hill is amazing.

Yesterday I rode up the Armstrong trail, to the Mid-Mountain trail and met up with the gang from San Diego. The Armstrong trail is only uphill. I’m wondering if they are going to rename that one? Anyway, we rode over to Red Pine and then back on the Mid-Mountain trail to Park City. It was about 30 miles off-road. My arms are pretty worked. I fell once. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but for some reason, my bike stopped and I flew over the bars. When I got up, my rear wheel wasn’t in. It was about 2 hours into the ride, so I’m not sure exactly what happened. I assume my quick release came undone during the fall, but that doesn’t explain getting launched. I doubt I’ll ever figure it out. My shoulder was pretty achy all night from hitting the ground.

This morning I have an appointment to see Eric Heiden’s wife, Karen, who is also an orthopedic surgeon. But, she specializes in hands. She is in practice with Eric I think, but I’m not sure about that. She is going to look at my thumb and hand. It is a good time, since they both are pretty jacked up. Maybe I’ll get Eric to look at my shoulder if he is around.

Trudi took off at the wee hours of the morning to drive the 1700 kms. up to Edmonton, Canada. That is a long ways to go. She got a good bike ride in yesterday, so that is going to have to last her for the next two weeks. She is working through the Tour of Alberta, then the two World Tour Races in Montreal and Quebec City and then she is done for the season. She has a ticket back to Duluth the day after Chequamegon, so it’s only a couple more weeks.

I’m going to try to spend the majority of the day riding my MTB bike. I’d like to put some new, fatter, tires on to ride, but I doubt I’ll get around to it. I’ve been riding some Specialized Fast Trak 2.0. I got some 2.25 Schwalbe tires to try out, but don’t have an air compressor readily available, so I’ll just have to wait I guess.

I’m heading back to Steamboat on Thursday to go hang with Kent (Eriksen) for the weekend. Maybe I’ll hang with him late at night, when he seems to get a ton of work done. Maybe I can miter up a couple tubes and help put together my road bike if he isn’t already done with it.

I rode up on this kid when I was climbing up the Armstrong trail. He was pretty high up. I saw his dad a little later and got his phone number. I’m going to send him some MTB shoes and pedals for his son.

I wonder how many cities across the country have places and things named after Lance?

The view from the Mid Mountain trail.

Bromont waiting for Trudi after the ride.

The San Diego gang getting a beer after riding all day. It is amazing how much stuff they carry in back packs. That weight would kill me.

Trudi got a great birthday card from her team. Click twice to enlarge.

Yesterday I had a pretty strange ride. First thing in the morning I went to see Eric Heiden’s wife, Karen, about my hand. She is super good with hands. She said that I need to get a MRI to see exactly what is wrong with it and it would be pretty complicated to actually make it work better. My thumb has a little arthritis on top of being super loose. Anyway, I guess I heard what I needed to.

So, I decided to go for a long-ish MTB ride up to the top of the mountain and ride the Wasatch Crest Trail along the ridge. I started up the same climb as yesterday, the Armstrong Trail (not related to Lance) and just before I got up to the Mid Mountain Trail, I came upon a woman that had her rear wheel out and looked like she needed some assistance. I asked her if she was okay and she sort of hesitated and then said she was having trouble getting her skewer back in the hub.

So I stopped and took a look at it. I’m not sure why the skewer was out of the hub, because she had just flatted and changed a tube. It was the first time she had ever changed a tube and it sounded like it took a while. She broke the valve stem off the first one and had to patch the original tube. Anyway, sometime during the process she had the wheel on its side for a while and had pushed it hard into the ground because the axle was crammed full of sandy clay. Completely full. A skewer wouldn’t go in a millimeter. I took out a multi-tool and used a small allen key to try to dig out some of the stuff. It was super hard and I could only get out the first inch and a half from each side. The middle third or so was jam-packed. I finally put the skewer in and pounded the wheel on the ground and the remaining dirt came out. It took me a while to get her going. I rarely come up on a mechanical that I think that I might not be able to fix. At least one as silly as this one was. But, for a bit, I thought that it wasn’t going to work. I thought about it later and figured I could of tried filling the axle with water and that might of helped some, but that didn’t come across my mind at the time. Anyway, she was very thankful and I went on my way.

So I rode up and then got on the Pine Cone Trail to climb to the top. It is a very nice climb. I got up to the top and it comes out on a gravel road that you have to ride for a mile or so before you get to the top. I was riding up the gravel road and there was a sharp switch back. Standing there was a big family. Two parents and 3 daughters. That was sort of depressing on its own since I’d been climbing for over an hour to get up there. But what was more depressing was that the three kids were pretty fat and that they were on really junky bikes with flat pedals. I’d thought I had done a pretty good ride to climb the 3000 feet up to the top and here was a normal, everyday family just standing there. They stopped me and asked me if this was the Wasatch Trail I said yes, but I’d never ridden it. Then they pointed to a singletrack that went off from the switchback and asked if that was the trail. I had been so consumed about riding the steep corner, plus perplexed by them being there, that I had completely missed the singletrack. I stopped and got out a map and realized that was the right direction. I asked them what they were doing, since the Wasatch Trail is marked difficult on the trail map and the father said that they were going to ride it over to Canyons.

I found that nearly impossible to believe. It was going to be a 30 mile, hard ride for me and they had to be going less than 1/2 my speed. One of the daughters pulled out a tupperware container out of her backpack and started eating a big thing of macaroni and cheese. It seemed so surreal. Pretty depressing on my part. I wished them good luck and started down the trail.

I thought about it for a while. It was depressing because I thought I’d ridden high enough that I wasn’t going to see anyone but a pretty fit athlete the rest of the day. It would sort of be like climbing Mt. Everest and getting up to the last technical section, near the top, and some guy comes walking up in shorts, smoking a cigarette, asking which way to the top.

I guess it was great that the family didn’t have any limitations and were just going to try it. They seemed way over their heads in my estimation. I rode the ridge trail for just a mile or so and came upon a super technical, off-camber sand stone area. There is a zero percent chance that they could have went past this point. It would have been nearly impossible for them to ride the section or walk the section. I think they were lucky that part came so early in the endeavor because obviously they didn’t have any knowledge of the area. There wasn’t a turn off for 12 miles. At least a turn off that got them back down towards where they came from. I wish I knew where they ended up.

The rest of the ride was great. Great views from the top. Great single track descent. I rode down to the Red Pine Lodge, got a coffee, then rode back to the Holly Trail and descended into Canyons. It was just about 30 miles. Really great. My butt doesn’t think so, but my mind does.

I’m packing up and heading back to Steamboat Springs in a little bit. I’m kind of up in the air about what I’m doing this weekend now. I guess I have another day to decide.

The woman I came upon with the wheel issue.

The family was at the top of this gravel climb.

This was in the waiting area of the Heiden’s Ortho office. Where else could you go and there is a race bible from the Tour of California mixed in with the magazines?

Some of the singletrack descents were muddy.

I saw this on the bike path riding back up to Park City. Pretty extreme.

Bromont is the best sleeper in the world.