I found out Timp Cyclery does group rides on Thursdays at 5:30 pm so I thought I'd try out riding with them. There was rain threatening but I thought I'd head over anyway. When I got there no one was there - probably because of the weather. It had started to rain lightly, but I thought I would head up American Fork Canyon and see what happened - maybe the rain would be done by the time I got up there. I drove up to Tibble Fork through rain and it was drizzling a little when I got there. I almost didn't go biking but I decided to just head up the dirt road, American Fork Canyon Road, and see what happened. I figured I was going uphill so if it started raining I wouldn't get too cold. (You may see the hole in my logic already - eventually I would need to come back downhill.)So I just headed up the road - I ended up going about 6 1/2 miles. Even though it was a dirt road and there was a lot of pickup truck, dune bug, atv traffic it was really beautiful. I only saw a lot of traffic maybe the first 1/2 of the trail up - after that it thinned out a lot. There was a creek that was near the road quite often that was really pretty, not to mention lots of green growth everywhere. I was also surprised by how much camping is available up there. There are several major campgrounds and then lots and lots of little campsites all along the road.
The cool part was that there was only 1 truck going up and I beat it! It started out ahead of me and I caught up with it at about mile 3 during a really rocky section and then passed it back on the way down. It's not that I went especially fast - I think I was going 4 miles an hour when I passed it. It's just that the road was really rocky and he was driving conservatively - we even talked for about 10 seconds when I passed them.
I just went straight up the road - I believe towards Dry Fork until I hit a section that was super super rocky and I decided I'd better head back. After I'd turned back for maybe 2 minutes the rain hit! And it hit hard! After going just a couple of minutes, I saw a gorgeous deer bounding through a field not far in front of me. I had been feeling a little unlucky in the wildlife department lately since I hadn't seen anything cool for a while other than the skunk we ran into.
The rain was nearly blinding especially once my glasses got soaked. Now back to the - I'll be going uphill so I won't be cold. The 6+ miles downhill in the soaking rain eventually got to be pretty cold. Although I have to admit it wasn't nearly as cold as I was afraid it was going to be when the rain hit. The rain eventually dropped off, but pretty soon the road got really muddy with streams running down and across it. I never thought riding a dirt road could be so fun!
A look at the dirt road I was riding down - this is about 2/3 of the way down.
A look at the beautiful creek that meandered next to the road for much of the ride. I actually took this photo standing in exactly the same spot that I took the picture of the muddy road from - I just turned a little left.
Here's me covered in rain & mud after the ride - notice the clean spot where I was wearing my hydration pack.
No comments:
Post a Comment