Day 32 - July 17 - Loa, UT

I headed south towards Boulder and it wasn’t looking good from the start. As I left Torrey, I dropped down to a sign that said 6800 elevation and kept going downhill to what I’m guessing was 6500 ft. meaning I’d have to climb close to 3000 ft. instead of 2500. I climbed up a few major hills and was about 5 miles out when I heard the familiar sound of loose spokes clicking in my back tire. It really wasn’t that big of a deal but when I’m on a bike for 6 to 7 hours a day in silence, a continuous clicking sound on the bike drives me crazy. I got off to see which spoke was loose and it seemed like there were a few loose so I used what little knowledge of spokes I had to try and get all the spokes tightened. I ended up screwing up the wheel terribly and the wheel was extremely wobbly. I tried to get the wheel back to normal but in doing so I ended up tightening some too much and stripped the spokes trying to loosen them.

An hour later I admitted defeat and started walking the bike to the next town of Grover. I flagged a few people down to ask if there was a bike shop around but the only people that stopped didn’t speak English. There are a lot of tourists in Utah. I walked my bike to a house and asked if I could leave my bike there while I walked my wheel back to Torrey to see if I could find a bike shop. I had hoped there was a bike shop in Grover but the town only consisted of a few houses. Someone at the house, Dan, offered to drive me to Torrey. We got to Torrey and there was a shop that sold outdoor equipment and had bike parts so I was hopeful. There was someone there that had some knowledge of bikes and a truing stand but didn’t want to mess with my bike. They referred me to a dentist in the next town who was also the local bike mechanic. I called him and he was running a bike race in a different town, 5 miles west and said if I met him over there he could fix it. Long story short, we drove over there with the wheel, had to drive back to Grover to get my bike and all my stuff. Then, drove back and got dropped off and waited 2 hours until he had time to fix the wheel. By the time I got my bike fixed it was 3pm and my leg had been hurting me and I was now 5 miles behind where I started at 8 in the morning.

Since I was already west and didn’t feel like backtracking and climbing 3000 feet, I just continued west to the town of Loa. I met some really nice people who offered to let me set up my tent in their yard. There was a grocery store close by so I was finally able to stock up on food. The people I was staying with were artists and the guy, Arthur, did a lot of biking in central America. We sat around and talked about art and music for a few hours which was cool. It ended up being a long day, but thanks to the help of a few people, it ended up being a nice day.