last mtb of july

Since the end of July (I can't believe it's already the end of July!) means the Wasatch Wildflower Festival - and more on that later - we again switched up our routine to MTB on Saturday.  We planned ahead and got everything ready Friday night so that we could just roll out of bed and be on our way at 7 a.m.  Again, we parked at the in-town rail trail lot to allow me some extra miles on the bike, and the initial downhill brought goosebumps to my arms since the air was nice and cool.  Five hot air balloons floated overhead and it was another gorgeous day.

Up, up and away

The first thing we noticed was that there were a lot more people out walking their dogs than there had been the prior Saturday.  We had been surprised by the relative lack of people on the trails then; now we realized that it was because of the long, Utah-only holiday weekend and folks that would regularly be out on the Round Valley trails had likely gone out of town.  Still, everyone was very cordial and the earlier hour meant that we were ahead of most of the other MTBers.

Other than having to put my foot down on the Sweet Sixteen climb when a downhilling dude didn't yield (uphill traffic has the right-of-way, dude), I rode pretty well.  I seem to be gaining some confidence back and am slightly less squirrelly in my bike handling.  Slightly.  I've decided that my new favorite part of the whole ride is that Staircase climb: because it isn't rocky, I can climb it even though it is still a challenge and once at the top, it's basically all downhill from there.

Upright, smiling

After we got home, H went for a road ride and cut the lawn while I did laundry and made up stuff for dinner.  We headed up to Snowbird for a fantastic show, the Sweet Lillies, then returned home and crashed.  Summer is almost over - got to squeeze every bit out that we can.