Tour de Farmtown: A City Slicker’s Guide to Cycling Cache Valley

“You’re riding into the jaws of hell!”

Of all of the things I’d want to hear on an empty country road in the middle of my first 100-mile bike ride, I can’t say that was one. But there I was and there he was, a bearded man who looked like a swampy Santa Claus bawling out a warning as he zipped past, a chain of about ten ragged cyclists pedaling rapidly behind him and, more importantly, away from the town my ride partner and I were pedaling directly toward. 

We had just ridden through a downpour and managed to slip past a gnarly column of thunderclouds breaking over the Wellsville mountains, so this new information landed with an unnerving thud. Before I had time to conjure up what kind of hell would make a seasoned cyclist tremble in their clips like that, it hit me, right in the head and legs and arms.

Hailstones the size of quarters pinged off of my bike frame, knocked “Shave and a Haircut” into my helmet, weaseled their way through the slots to thump me in the head and bit into my exposed and very sunburned thighs. Pedaling at 15 miles per hour with nothing for cover, it felt like getting pelted with rocks.

Pulling into the Mendon rest stop after the hailstorm had passed was like pulling into a field hospital. Bikes were tipped in drunken angles against the curb while cyclists sat in huddled masses beneath a park pavilion, looking at us with pained empathy. I think there were some lying prostrate on the grass, blinking blankly up at the sky and likely rethinking their life choices like I was. My whole body was a bruise with eyeballs, my Lycra shorts had suctioned to my skin, and my legs quaked so hard that I nearly fell over in a port-a-potty and watched all my dignity slide down the drain.

It was a cruel initiation for a newbie to the sport. I was tired, hangry and broken, but in spite of Mother Nature making me the fool, those long country roads somehow still got under my bruised skin.

From the hillsides of Mendon, Cache Valley was a checkerboard of upturned soil in even rows, tall summer corn and swaying wheat that popped against the dark blue hues of the storm. Cows swaggered lazily through thick grass. The Bear River flowed through the valley in scribbled loops, and Logan’s lights glittered through the trees to the east. In spite of myself, I was impressed.

Since that first century ride, I’ve pedaled hundreds of Cache Valley miles, racing down Logan Canyon with the wind whipping in my face, joyriding through the country and commuting through the city. It’s become one of my favorite spots to ride in Utah.

There aren’t many bike lanes to speak of there — you’re saddling up for a wild west graced with the tart smell of manure, big-hipped trucks and loose dogs occasionally yapping at your heels — but there’s a tight sense of community here. Fellow cyclists give you smiles and two-fingered salutes of solidarity as they ride past. With a whole lot of postcard countryside at your toes to boot, cycling Cache Valley, even in unforgiving conditions, can be an absolute joy.