Commute on Dirt

Ride to Work

Today I tried something I hadn't done before and that was riding the mountain bike to work instead of the road bike. I live in N Lehi, so I drove to the start of the BST in Cedar Hills. The first several miles of the trail along the bench from Cedar Hills to Grove Creek and then to Battle Creek are all double track. There are quite a few branches off of the main road (mostly due to offroad vehicles tearing up the mountain) but as long as you're heading north/south it's easy to navigate. I saw probably over 100 deer along the way during this stretch. It's a nice, peaceful trail with minimal traffic (no motor vehicles of course). I think I'm going to bring my boys out to ride this portion of the trail as it's mostly rolling terrain with no exposure. It'll be a good way to expose them to riding the dirt.

After Battle Creek*, you climb some fairly steep, loose double track and then it turns to single track, then more climbing on single/double track and finally it's all single track the rest of the way to the shooting range.

*I wasn't going to mention this, but I crossed Battle Creek at the wrong spot, so I ended up having to cross the water while carrying my bike and unfortunately I slipped on a wet, icy rock and fell into the water up to my knees. It made for a cold rest of the ride.

Some trail between Battle and Dry near the high point.

In case you're wondering, this took me about an hour of ride time from Cedar Hills to 1600 N in Orem. Once I get the route dialed in, it'll be probably closer to 50 minutes.

Here's the GPS track:

Ride Home with a Detour

After work, I met Kanyon Kris at the shooting range. In the parking lot I saw this trailer that looks like it can carry 20 bikes. I like the design, just what were they thinking on the color?


We rode from the shooting range north past Dry on the BST and hit some side trails. We ran into Chris Holley and stopped and chatted about the awesomeness of the timp foothill trails. We all agreed we have something special in our own backyard.

As we continued on, Kris asked me how long I've been mountain biking and I confessed it's only been several months. He on the other hand has been doing this for 20 years now! I'm sure I could learn a thing or two from him.

As we finished up, I went my separate way north back to my car in Cedar Hills. What a great day of biking. The only thing I'm missing is a lunch ride!

More BST: Orem to Pleasant Grove

I rode the BST trail again tonight after work and it's drying out quickly. There were only a few very small patches of mud the entire ride. This time I had enough time to drop down to Battle Creek. I was sort of disgusted at how torn up and littered the hillside is as you get closer to Battle Creek. I should of taken some pictures of all the trash, beer cans, shotgun shells, ruts, etc. There was this one steep grade where it looked like some yahoos had taken their dirt bikes and had a contest to see who could climb the farthest, leaving an ugly scar on the slope and damaging the single track.

It would be great if a group of us locals could get a work crew together one of these days and help improve the BST. Even just some simple trash pickup would go a long way to making this part of the trail more enjoyable.

Speaking of locals, I ran into Kanyon Kris on my way back. I've never met Kris, but I read his blog regularly. I gather he probably knows the trails around the timp foothills better than anyone around. As we passed each other going opposite directions, he asked if I knew Rick in reference to the Adobe Kit I was wearing. I confirmed and then acknowledged I recognized him to be Kris. So, I'm thinking in 20 years when I'm old and grey (no reference to you Kris as being old and grey) that I'll run into random people on the trail and they'll recognize me. That'd be cool. I think.