Parleys Canyon Riders: Why Do We Do These Rides?

Two loyal PCR riders did a breakaway today in the 2011 Huntsman jerseys, in honor of the ever-so-absent Brother Lloyd. The 8 am start time was because Mike and Kim just need a little more beauty sleep than other PCRs.(note video) Stage one was home to Hennifer non-stop, then up the Echo Canyon bridge and on to Wanship...for the Mary shuttle home. We rode squirt gun free for around 80 miles, 5100 ft of climbing and no one nearly died of heat exhaustion afterward (Brother Wood). As always, the Professor pulled Briggs' sorry butt up and down and everywhere (except around the Hennifer Loop, which only Mike rode while Briggs found a chair and a coke).

Hazard Alert!!! back side of Big Mountain has been gravel resurfaced and they haven't swept the final gravel off yet...so be really careful.

Eating and Drinking is KEY

Dear Band (I use term in an elastic sense, as in a loose association of people, rather than a tightly knit group) of Brothers:

The Corps of PCR, that group of members that is consistent, if nothing else, took off at the regularly scheduled Saturday time, 6:00 a.m. (Scott Lloyd, that is Ante Meridiem, or before noon, or more commonly known as the morning; have you ever seen it?) on a mundane ride (so atypical of the Big Man, who planned it). It was supposed to be a flat ride to Draper, then around the Point of the Mountain, to the entrance of American Fork Canyon, not up it, and then back the same hideous route--weaving through traffic, inhaling dust and exhaust, staring at countless guardrails and tract housing. The rest of the members of PCR left on their ride at a more urbane hour, after they rolled out of bed at a leisurely pace, drank their orange juice, ate their fancy granola, brushed their teeth, groomed their hair, said good-bye to their sweeties, and were inspected by the Generalissimo of Fashion (you get the picture of this pampered group). It was unusually warm when the hard--bitten PCR warriors began their ride, a harbinger of things to come. As our group passed by the site of the last week’s accident, the most sensitive of its members carefully pointed out the height of the curb and how well it was marked, to the member (who shall go unnamed) who hit it last week--such brotherly love is one of the many reasons that member rides with this group (again, I emphasize that what I mean by “group” is people with a general common goal: to ride bikes and get home in as few pieces as possible).

As we approached Draper City we witnessed the preparations for that fair city’s celebration of Pioneer Days. It inspired a member of our group (who shall remain unnamed) to depart from our time-honor tradition of following “the plan”. I do not know whether it was the heat, being caught up in the pioneering spirit exuded by the citizens of Draper, or just plain stupidity, but we were talked into going up over Traverse Mountain, up to the top of American Fork Canyon, and back up over Traverse Mountain in the blazing hot sun. Craig’s electronic contraption measured the temperature at 108 degrees as we summited Traverse Mountain a second time, but it felt a lot hotter! By the time we hit 60^th South, the heat got to the Big Man. He folded like a cheap Italian suit! When we were within 20 blocks of home his tire went flat (I think it was contrived to give him some rest). By then he was delirious from heat exhaustion. He changed his tire in record time--45 minutes! For fifteen minutes he labored to replace the tube. Once it was ready to be inflated he realized that the stem was too short, the tube could not be inflated. By now he was incoherent. But his brothers could not distinguish his state of delirium from his normal condition, so they let him change the tire a second time. The fact that it took the Big Man so many times and so long to change his tire should have signaled to the other members that he was in distress. It is a good thing that the Big Man’s career path was not to serve in a NASCAR pit crew; that is, of course, unless his team’s goal was to come in dead last! Eventually he made it home to his sweet wife, who rushed to his aid, driving over garden tools to save her man from what seemed to be peril. It was a million dollar experience we would not even pay a nickel to repeat! We missed the pampered PCR members, who had their chauffeur pick them up at the appointed time and return them to the safety of their estates. Several morals to be learned from this experience are that not only must you keep your rubber side down, but inflated was well, and never roll your wheels up-hill in the blazing hot sun!