Park City, Heber, and down Provo Canyon

The Wednesday after our postponed trip, I decided to do the Park City ride. School starts next week so I'm not sure when I'll have the time to just take off on a whim and I figured I'd better make the best of it.


I stopped off at Best Buy to get me some new headphones as the ones I had been using are buggered for some reason. I have yet to find the perfect set of headphones for use in a full face helmet, but I will!


I set off heading North on I-15 about 9:30 am, so no rush hour traffic. I had planned on taking I-215 up to Parleys Canyon, but the sign board on the freeway warned of lane closures on East bound 215 so I decided that I-80 would be a better choice.


The bike handled beautifully up the canyon and felt like she had plenty of power. I reached Park City pretty quickly and exited onto the Kimball Junction exit. At the next stoplight I decided to hang a left and fuel up at the Chevron and see what my MPG was. since it was a new engine to me and hadn't been run a lot, I wasn't sure how my fuel economy would compare to the previous engine, and being stranded without gas is something I try to avoid. While waiting at the light the bike unexpectedly died, which isn't normally a concern since I frequently kill the engine at stop lights to conserve gas anyhow. However she wasn't starting back up and I was getting concerned enough that I nearly hopped off the bike to push her through the intersection, but she came back to life.. not sure why but hey, I'll take it.


I pulled in at the Chevron and filled up, and found I was at 38.9mpg, and that's while going up a pretty steep canyon! I was very pleased with this and left. On the way back onto the main road I snapped this picture which shows some Olympic Ski jumps. It is my understanding that athletes come from all over the world to train here in Park City.

It's a little embarrassing but I ended up a bit turned around in Park City, but after a few unnecessary detours through road construction (in some cities you have to be careful where you go because you might be stopped and mugged by unscrupulous individuals, here in Utah you have to be careful because you might be stopped by people in bright orange gear picketing with signs that read "Slow Down, Men at Work " or "Road Construction.") I finally figured out where I was going and proceeded to go in the correct direction.

I found the freeway heading into Heber and proceeded to open the throttle. I don't know if it was the grade of the hill I was on or what, but I was in 5th gear with the throttle wide open and was only doing about 65mph. Not a big deal, just interesting to me due to some of the changes I made to the bike.

Heber is a small little town that is growing bigger. I passed through and headed on toward Provo Canyon. Just outside Heber I stopped and took some more pictures since it's pretty area and I'm told no one reads my blog, they just look at the pics :)

I wish I could have stopped on the way down the canyon to take pictures of the reservoir, but there wasn't enough room on the shoulder. Half way down I found a scenic pull off and took some more pics. Try and ignore that goofy looking guy in one of the pics, he seems to show up now and again... I think he may be following me ;)

Provo Canyon is a lovely place and if you are anywhere near it, I highly recommend riding it. I'll have to remember to come back in the fall!

After exiting the canyon I headed through Orem and returned to I-15. On the way back home I found a lovely little rain storm which wasn't too bad. I have learned that if it's going to rain I prefer it to be relatively heavy so that you don't get water spots on your face shield.

I wasn't quite in the mood to ride home yet and was mulling my options over in my mind when I was reminded of one of the requests on the blog for more pictures of my adorable niece... so I headed over to my sisters house for a surprise visit!

I encountered another brief rain shower... but arrived safely. Upon dismounting my bike I called my sister to make sure she was home and headed inside. We chatted for a bit and she treated me to a tasty lunch of Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and home made Tomato Soup!

I played with my niece and took a couple pictures.

For some reason when I went in I had left my key in the ignition and the lights on, so when I went to go home the battery was as dead as could be.... Bugger. I lucked out and my brother in law had a battery charger that just happened to have the same connection as the one I use so I just plugged it in. My sister was nice enough to give me a lift home and I returned later that evening to pick it up.