Since finishing up Mt. Hood this weekend, Taylor, Mike, Roman and I took off early Monday morning (June 7th HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA! 95!) for Salt Lake City. It was only the second time I’d visited the area and the first time in the summer (did a collegiate ski race back in ’07 @ snowbird) so I was looking forward to some sweet rides. I wasn’t disappointed. On Tuesday we did 4200 ft of climbing and hit 95km/hr on the descent! Yes, we went back up that climb which was a little slower but the climbing legs were definitely feeling better than at Hood. The big change in Salt Lake was the temperature. Finally after working on my tan in Walla Walla on January 14th and once again at our home collegiate race on April 10th, I found were summer has been hiding. We even hit up a pool in the afternoon which was great because it had a slide! This morning we took off before the sun came up and climbed up Sunset Loop. 2.5 hours and another 3400 ft of climbing in a little under an hour to reach a maximum elevation of 8060ft. The mountains here are great, especially when you are on top! They provide great vistas and an excellent excuse to go downhill way fast.
By 11am we were off to Denver but not before Gary showed us to the KIWI BAKERY for some meat pies. Since all the guys on the team are Kiwi and I remembered how good those pies are from a trip in ’01, we were all super stoked to get some lunch in us. Again, we weren’t disappointed! Thanks again to our Salt Lake homestay family Gary, Tracy, Colin, Hannah and Lisa. The last two days in Salt Lake have been a blast.
Denver is only 190 miles away now so hopefully we will be there soon. More training tomorrow before we complete the trip to Missouri by Friday night. There is a criterium we are entering on Saturday night before the NRC St. Louis Kermese race on Sunday night (130km on a 5km loop!).
Flooded - 45min up the climb we hit this
View of Salt Lake
Labels: Lifestyle