There were a lot of fears I had about moving to Utah County. You know what they are, so I won't get into them here. However, next to BBQs with the Fishers (and Ben), the best part about our recent move from SLC to the U.C. is that my commute has been shortened from a 35+ minute drive to a 7 minute bike ride. Over the previous 7 months, I estimate that I've spent almost 170 hours in my car driving back and forth to work. That's probably about as much Shammy Time I could hope for over the same period (not that I've ever actually tracked my hours, although maybe I should think about doing so). I'm hoping to split my extra 25 hours per month between family and riding, and maybe even get a little extra sleep each night. So far, things like weather and travel have been putting a damper on the extra shammy time, but that's going to need to change pretty soon.

By the way, if you ever happen to be riding out by the Utah Lake State Park/Marina west of Provo, you might see a bike path that departs from the north side of the marina. You may even be tempted to ride your bike on it, in hopes that it will allow you to bypass the GRDT ("Geneva Road Death Trap") on your way up north. Save yourself the trouble, because within .5 miles, you'll run into this:




There's another dead-end trail just like this if you head north off of the road that circles the west side of Geneva Steel, and yet another if you head West on the Jordan River Parkway from the N Saratoga Road on the north side of Utah Lake. Why even start a trail if the plan is to dead-end the trail in a few hundred yards? Fortunately, as seen in the above picture, the trail builder guy painted some helpful U-Turn arrows on the pavement, without which I would have probably kept riding straight into the weeds and bushes. Thanks a bunch trail builder guy!