Cedar City – The Promised Land!

Milford, NV > Cedar City, UT

Miles Ridden – 57.4

Mileage to date – 790.0

We have been thinking of Cedar City for a few days. It is the end of the line for me. It is really the only town with a proper bike store for about 500 miles once you leave Carson City. John needs his from derailleur cable replaced and his brakes tightened up. Jaime needs work done on his bike and Heather was looking for a women’s specific seat. There is something here for everyone!

John and I went for breakfast at the diner owned by the same people that own the hotel we stayed in. Due to the time zone change it was pretty dark at 6:10 am –

Breakfast was included in the hotel rate, but we upgraded to add pancakes. Too much? I think not –

Ethan stopped by at 7:20 just slightly after sunrise to pick up our gear. Before we even started riding John noticed his front tire was flat. That makes #5 –

The air was cool and refreshing as we started out of town. I don’t think the scenery was quite as nice as the past few days and we were anxious to get to Cedar City so we did not pause much for photos. We raced up to the top of the one pass for the day and expected to see Ethan there with cold drinks. He had said he would try to meet us 25 miles out or so and the top of the pass was 27 miles. We are getting spoiled!

We kept riding expecting to see Ethan any minute but as the miles clicked by, we began to wonder if perhaps he took a different route to Cedar City? We saw Jaime and Heather approaching so we stopped to see if they knew where Ethan was. As soon as we stopped and looked back, there was Ethan at mile 37! He had cold cokes. He also had a special treat for me since it was my last day.

Last night at dinner #2, I mentioned the hard thing about the long rides with no services was that you could not get a cold drink and a proper meal. Instead we munch on energy bars and water that is like 100 degrees! Ethan remembered that and picked up some quesadillas at the Mexican restaurant next to their hotel. We had a choice of steak or chicken –

What a wonderful, thoughtful young man! Thanks for all your help these last few days.

Refueled, we motored on eager to reach Cedar City. Naturally, the last 8 or so miles were uphill

just as the temperatures started to rise. John got flat tire number 2 for the day and 6 for the trip about 7 miles out of town! He is very happy that Cindy is bringing some new tires from Vermont.

We made it to the bike shop. I dropped mine off to be packed and shipped home. John had his bike worked on. Cindy landed in Las Vegas and will be here around 5 pm.

Tomorrow John, Jaime, and Heather will head up towards Panguitch which is about 60

miles away and involves 18 miles of climbing to 10,500 feet. Ouch!

Cindy and I plan to go to Bryce Canyon NP and do some hiking. I hope to do some blog entries of our visits to Bryce and Capital Reef NP.

John and I are hoping to work out a system where he can provide me some raw materials via Dropbox and I will update the blog on his behalf for those who are interested in tracking his progress.

John is incredibly fit and riding strong there is no doubt in my mind that he can go the distance.

A couple of more photos from today –

There is some greenery in Utah thanks to irrigation –

My last descent on this trip –