85.82 mi / 5:18:38 time / 16.1 mph avg. / 41.5 mph max. / 2409 ft. climbing
Staying at Watchman Campground

I slept out on the balcony for the fun of it last night, just me, my sleeping bag and my pad. I think I actually slept better there than inside the room…it helped that it didn’t get down to 25 degrees like it had the night before. I woke just in time to wave goodbye to Swati and Dennis as they packed up the car and drove off. I was sad to see them go, and now I would be truly starting the solo portion of my journey.

Even though we’d had a late night, I made it on the road by 8am. Today would be relatively easy and mostly downhill, so I considered getting one last morning look at Bryce, but decided it would be better to stay ahead of the game. The day started with some riding on the high plateau, through (relatively) lots of tourist-related facilities. Then I hit Red Canyon, where for no apparent reason at all, there is a 5-mile bike trail. Must have come from some odd political earmark. Even stranger, they explicitly prohibit bicycles on the road in that section, even though the road is exactly the same as it is everywhere else. At the beginning, the trail wound back and forth off the road a bit, and it would have annoyed me if I was going the other way (uphill), but going down was just fine. It gave me a nice chance to gawk at Red Canyon, which is sort of like a Bryce Jr., without the admission fee.

Red Canyon suddenly ends, and I was in a different world. There was green (or at least green-ish) everywhere! I would be heading southwest, upstream along the fast-flowing Sevier River, which creates all the greenery. Even though it was uphill for a stretch, I was lucky to have a favorable tailwind that made for easy riding. At 11:30am, I blew past my planned stopping point for the day, covering the 61 miles at nearly an 18mph average. I would easily be making it all the way to Zion today.

After an awesomely disgusting patty melt lunch at Mt. Carmel Junction, I headed west on UT 9, uphill and into a headwind and towards the dreaded Zion tunnel, in which bicycles are not allowed. I’ve been nervous about this tunnel for the whole trip, because I’ve read that some people have had much difficulty getting a ride through, because the park service doesn’t help at all. Though the sagebrush plateau along UT 9 gave no hint of the approaching canyon, I knew I was getting closer when every car coming toward me had their headlights still on. And then suddenly, the pavement turns red, begins winding, and drops between imperial mountains of multi-colored stone, many built with unlikely geometric patterns on their surface. If the drive to get to the entrance is so impressive, I can’t imagine what the park will be like.

Swati had given me their Zion admission which was good for seven days, though I really meant to pay my own entry. As I rolled to the entrance gate, I had my money obviously right in my hand, but the woman looked straight past it and instead saw Swati’s Zion brochure and receipt that I just happened to have stuck in the top of my handlebar bag, and told me to roll on through. She had to know she was doing me a favor, so that was very cool of her. She also said that the ranger at the tunnel would help me hitch-hike through, so that was encouraging.

When I got to the tunnel, there was a short line of cars waiting, because they send RVs and anything else large through it as one-way traffic, for which they pay $15. It’s odd that they make such specific provisions for RVs, but then ignore cyclists, especially since otherwise the park is extremely cyclist-friendly. There’s even a cyclist rate that I should have paid at the entrance gate, which is hard to make logical sense of. “Sure, come in, and pay only $12 because you’re on a bicycle, but sorry, you can’t go past that tunnel coming a mile from here”.

The ranger at the gate wasn’t especially helpful, beyond barking that I should find someone in a pickup to carry me through. He did point out that a pickup had just pulled up a few cars behind me in the line. I walked the bike back and saw that unfortunately the bed was covered. Still, when they rolled down the window, I asked if they had any room under it. No, but if I was cool with laying it on top, they’d take me, as long as I didn’t have sharp stuff that would puncture the cover. Awesome! So my new friend Dave even helped me take off my bags, put them on top of the bed cover, and then lay the bike on top of them. I hopped inside and met his wife Val and their son. Dave did a great job of taking it easy through the mile-long tunnel, and the bike didn’t move an inch. I told him he drives like a professional, and he told me that driving a truck is actually what he does for a living. Ah ha! Once through the tunnel, they let me out at the first safe spot. I was figuring that it could take at least an hour or two for me to find a way through the tunnel, but instead it took barely five minutes! It was yet another heartwarming example of great people helping out strangers in need.

Just as I got my bike off the truck and Dave and Val drove on, a giant bus pulled into the turnout and a load of Dutch tourists piled out. I was mobbed! They were literally surrounding me in a circle and taking dozens pictures of me and the bike. It was hilarious! As an added bonus, some of them helped to steady the bike while I put the bags back on, even though very few of them seemed to have English skills. And as usual, the solar panel was the most interesting thing to them too.

I rolled down a big bunch of switchbacks through more towering mountains, and then I crossed the Virgin River and was in Zion Canyon proper. I rolled past the first campground (“South”, the first-come, first-served one) because the sign said “FULL”. Watchman Campground (the one that allows reservations) also said “FULL”, but I pulled up to the registration booth just for the hell of it. And the clerk inside told me that someone had just left early, so they had a single tent site available! Yet more luck!

Unfortunately, when I shifted my gears while puling up to the booth, I once again shifted past my largest gear in the rear and jammed it between the gear and the spokes. I’d done this before, but this one was much worse, because the chain put a pretty bad kink in one of the spokes, and more catastrophically, bent and fractured the aluminum flange on the hub. That prevented the hub from rotating freely, which meant that no racheting motion could occur, and that’s required any time the bike is moving and I stop pedalling. So I had made it to Zion a day early, made it through the dreaded tunnel with ease, and gotten a campsite in a full campground. But now I had a bike that was completely unrideable. I was pissed at myself, and this was one point where I was happy Dennis wasn’t around, because I knew he would feel the same way, especially since this problem was completely preventable, if only I had done a little bit of maintenance that I had kept putting off.

But, somehow, my streak of incredible luck was not even close to running out. I was now just outside of Springdale, and I knew Springdale had a bike shop. I knew this because it’s the only town with a bike shop between here and Moab, all the way on the other side of the state. On top of that, Zion/Springdale has a free shuttle bus service that picks up right near the campground. If you’re going to be an idiot and break your bike somewhere in southern Utah, there is absolutely no better place to do it.

So, I walked my disabled bike over to my campsite, quickly set up camp, took my wheel off, and walked over to the shuttle stop. In a couple minutes, I was dropped off steps away from Zion Cycles, and, luck again, the door was open even though it was nearly 6pm on a Sunday. In Utah.

I was expecting I would need a whole new hub and have the whole wheel rebuilt, and was willing to pay for that, but Fred looked it over and figured he could just disassemble the hub, go at it a bit with a Dremel to smooth it out, and replace the 9 spokes that had been scarred. Even better, he started working on it even while we were talking, and told me to give a call later on, because he might even have it done before tomorrow!

So I went next door to a pizza & pasta place and ate a whole pizza, then hopped the bus back to the Visitor Center and campground. I gave my mom a call from the pay phone there (thanks for the calling card info, Swati & Dennis!), and then wandered back to my site to clean it up some more. The people who left it early must have left because they had no idea how to camp. They left the site in disgusting shape, with nearly a whole watermelon in the fire grate, a bunch of cans and bottles, and a ton of other food scraps that were attracting flies. And I have no idea what was smeared all over the picnic table. Talking later on back at the bike shop, they mentioned that with the economy, it seems like a lot of people who might have taken motels before are now camping, so it makes for a demographic that is wholly ignorant of respectful camping culture.

Then I called back to Zion Cycles, and yes, my wheel would be ready by the time they closed at 8, so I could come on down and get it. Unbelievable. When I saw it, it was all clean and beautiful and true, and spun like a dream. We talked a bunch more, and I even got some good advice on routes over to the Grand Canyon. Fred and his wife are yet another example of great and helpful people without whom this trip would not be possible.

This time I walked back to the campground (it’s really only like a mile or so), happily spinning my wheel in my hand. I stopped at the small market just outside the park boundary which is the most comprehensively-stocked small market I’ve ever seen, and got some snacks, ice cream, and a beer. I started putting my bike back together as it got dark, but hit the sack and would finish up in the morning.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 10th, 2009 at 5:04 pm and is filed under 2009 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.