Day 25: Park City, UT – Evanston, WY

Another day of snow and rain. There’s a bike path leading 20 miles north of Park City, and it turns from paved to dirt about 4 miles in. Unfortunately it’d been raining every day for the last week so the path was 100% mud. With our heavy bikes we sank into the mud and progress was slow.

The town of Coalville lies on the bike path and we stopped for a quick lunch at an excellent barbecue place before heading towards Wyoming. The rain continued as we rode along a rural road with very few cars. Donald got a flat and once again patched it with the tubeless tire plug which works like magic.

The interval between passing vehicles increased dramatically as we worked our way up through the mountains and towards the Wyoming border – we went a stretch with an hour between passing cars – much longer than any other road we’ve been on. The rain finally stopped and the road rose up to a high plateau, crossed the state line, and turned to dirt. And by dirt I mean mud.

We had mapped out the route and were expecting these six miles of dirt road but it still wasn’t a lot of fun. Before long the mud had fully caked our wheels, the gap between the wheels and fenders, built up around the brakes and sprayed all over our bags, legs, and shoes. After a long hill we reached the crest and began our descent, only for Donald’s wheels to lock up and stop spinning due to the sheer amount of mud caked in between the wheels and fenders.

After a quick mud removal we proceeded on and finally reached the pavement where we removed much more mud. By now our chains were extremely noisy but luckily Evanston was only another 15 miles. We grabbed a room in a motel and spent a full hour cleaning our bikes and lubing our drivetrains. There’s a brew pub on main street with a good nut brown ale.

Notes from Donald: “The dirt road was nice until OH MY GOD SO MUCH MUD.”

Today’s mileage: 74 miles

Total: 1290 miles