It is a cloudy morning.  Grey and black the sky churns and turns over head.  It is late July.  The twins are scheduled to be induced tomorrow.  We brace ourselves.  The same way we have been bracing ourselves everyday since January.  That new reality inevitable and impending is knocking at the door.  I glance out the window to Timpanogos.  While not the highest peak along the Wasatch, it is the most prominent, recognizable, iconic.  It towers over the valley unseen by the masses below.  It is just another forgotten landmark, blended in with every other everyday existence.  The trees, the clouds, the sunsets and moonrises.  All overlooked by the hustling and bustling of people and children hurrying home to stare at the box in the living room.  Eager to see exotic locales, absurd comedies, and steamy soap operas.  Oblivious to the amazing geological wonder standing over them.  Unaware of the miles of trails, canyons, meadows, hollows and drainages that make up the mountain.  Ignorant of the history and the myths behind the sentinel of the valley.  Apathetic to the quiet solitude it so easily and readily offers up.  Not everybody.  But many.

Every year in late July I get an unquenchable desire to ride long mountain roads. I blame the Tour de France for this.  Despite the doping scandals and the infighting between governing bodies, marketing groups, sponsors and drug testers, I am still awestruck by that simple beauty of small Italians and Germans and Spaniards, and even Frenchmen and Americans riding up these iconic mountain roads through the Alps.

And so with the image of their pedal dancing set firmly in my delusional mind I set out to conquer the local mountain roads.

In 2005 I rode the Brianhead Epic 100.  A 100 mile mountain bike race.  I had a terrible day.  Some of my riding companions attributed that terrible day to my breakfast of bacon.  Just bacon.  Here is that story.