Conquering Nebo

I finally did it! Yesterday, I rode 48.5 miles from my house in Spanish Fork to Nephi over the Nebo Loop. I hit the highest point of the ride at 9300 feet above sea level. That's 4700 feet of elevation gain from the lowest point at 4600 feet above sea level.

There was a bit of snow on the road once I got up to the higher elevations, but for the most part it wasn't covering the whole road and I was able to find a path through it. However, there were a handful of times when I had to get off my bike and walk through 10 to 20 yards of snow that was completely covering the road.

My biggest obstacle was a massive tree that had fallen. It was too big to climb over so I had no choice but to go around it. Going around it meant climbing 10 feet or so up the hillside. This wouldn't have been a problem had the hillside not been covered in snow. I got three steps into the climb before I was up to my waste in snow. With a little bit of persistence I was able to finally make it to the other side and continue my ride.

I definitely wasn't setting any speed records yesterday. I completed the ride in just over 4 hours. Of course, I couldn't expect to keep a 20 mph average over a route like that, but I think that I was still riding a little slower than normal. First of all, Rosey and I had gone on a 12 mile hike through the mountains yesterday and my legs and body already felt a little fatigued. Second, I was fighting a pretty ugly wind for the first 10 miles of the ride. On top of being generally demoralizing, fighting that much wind kind of zapped a lot of my energy before I even got to the hard part of the ride.

Now that I've got Nebo behind me, I'm starting to set my sights on other climbs in the area. The Alpine Loop is likely to be next on the list. I'd also like to tackle Fairview to Huntington. I'm hoping that with enough training I can compete in the Alta Hill Climb this year. And, of course, the ultimate goal... Haleakala!