Friday: Headwig, Headaches and Heroes

So today we awoke at 4.30am on the Salt Flats in between Wendover and Salt Lake City in the pitch black next door to the mobile phone antenna station we'd camped next to to start the day of cycling. Jack ticked the disappointment box as before we'd even set off he realised he'd got a flat back tire. Bad times. He pumped it up hoping it'd be a slow puncture and his luck paid off. We cycled off across the flats towards Delle, UT 40 miles away where the gas station was on the other side of the flats. There were two rest areas inbetween so the water situation wasn't too much of a pressure than we'd anticipated (we'd taken 16 litres from Wendover tolast us the 70 miles over the flats and the nights camping and eating). We got to Delle and phoned the first hero of the day Jeremy Smith. Jeremy cycles (crazy lengths of time and distance) for Ski Utah and answered a forum post I made a few weeks before we flew out here. We exchanged emails and he basically told us where (and where not to) go while we were cycling through. Jeremy met us at McDonalds at Lake Point, rode us into Salt Lake City through the cycle route that took us across the Salt Lake City Airport and showed us some of the sights aswell as donating some good Vegas Bachelor party stories, all of which were much appreciated. It was about 24 miles ish from the McDonalds to where we ended up and he had a bike race the next day. 170 Miles. Thats right. 170. Miles. He was going to put us up in his own house but he had the race the next day and he had to be out of his house at 4am to get ready for it. So, he set up us with one of his cycling friends, who also rides for Ski Utah - Josh Gunter. This folks is our second hero of the day. He'd been out and bought us strong beer, made pasta and bolognaise, bought some extra bread and chips to up our carb intake and gave us free reign of his bachelor pad. He's a proper top bloke who then set to work on our bikes, sorting out Ben's gears and replacing Jack's back wheel with one of his own and washed all of our clothes and kit. He also has a dog, a sort of German pointer cross (Josh if you want to correct this to clarify the breed do leave us a comment) called 'Headwig' named after a character from the film "Headwig and the Angry Inch" which according to Josh is defiantely worth a rent. Jeremey brought over an air matress and we hit the sack at about 11.

Id like to point out the dog is absolutely not named after the Owl in the Harry Potter films. So don't comment saying its wrong. You're wrong.

Apologies to Jeremy but we have yet to get a photo of him, but below are photos of us on the salt flats, a picture of Josh sorting out Jacks bike and the immortal Headwig.


Until next time Blog fans, stay sexy.

Tom