Wind at our backs
Our stay at the mansion in Nephi was just what we needed: an outdoor pool to cool off in, hot tub to soak sore muscles, big meal from random Mexican restaurant (mostly rice and beans), comfy bed (we sleep well when exhausted), and a spinach smoothie for breakfast to fuel our ride. The ride out of Nephi was beautiful - we’ve always been on I-15 for this section of Utah and had never taken the time to be on the smaller roads to the west. We rode down through Goshen Valley with the wind at our backs, then worked our way around the west side of Utah lake, finishing our ride where we started 3 days earlier in Sandy. Our total was a little over 200 miles and 6000 vertical feet.
Some of the things we learned:
- Headwinds with panniers create significant exhaustion.
- Hills on a heavily loaded tandem recumbent hurt - we already knew this, we just relearned it really well.
- We can do this - we just need to accept a slow pace and churn out the miles.
- We need a lot of water - we came super close to running out on our first day and that seemed to effect us a lot.
We highly recommend the route. On a road bike it could be done in one long day (especially if you start closer to Eagle Mountain). The shoulders are reasonable for much of the ride and for the parts where a shoulder didn’t exist the traffic was light.
Next big ride: Europe.
