Northern Bear Lake – Randolph – Huntsville – Salt Lake City
200 kilometers
A few weeks ago Jacko started texting the parents of his ex-girlfriend Donna. They are also passionate bike tourists and by coincidence they are cycling through the US from south to north. We are getting closer and closer to each other. We decide to meet up in a small campsite just outside of a small town in northern Utah called Randolph.
That morning we leave Bear Lake and enter our fourth State in the US: Utah. I’m a little bit disappointed that there is no sign marking the state boundaries. It’s our 9th day on the bike and our body and minds are starting to feel it. Every time we come to a stop and I have to get that 50kg load moving again, acid is filling up in my legs.



After a hot day with a tough climb we arrive in Little Creek campground, we are the first ones to arrive. We check if this indeed is the spot that we said that we would meet. We wait for Jos and Magda to arrive and when they do I hug them like we’ve been long lost friends. We brought beer, they brought even more beer. We cook dinner on their stove, cling our beers together and exchange cycling stories. I’m astonished by the enthusiasm of general practitioner Jos and his secretary and life partner Magda. They are my parents age but still crazy like a teenager. When we propose that we will go for a dip in the nearby cold water reservoir they won’t hesitate and are the first to be in the water.
The next day we first pay a visit to the local bakery for a big piece of carrot cake after Jos and Magda wave us goodbye. Our navigation app is telling us we are going to have a climb of 45 kilometers, however the slopes seem to be gentle and thus we think it is going to be “false flat” with imperceptible uphill grades. We could not have been more wrong. It indeed starts gentle but after 10 kilometers turns into a killer of a climb. Thirty-five kilometers to go. Because we misled ourselves into believing this would not be so bad we also spilled our energy levels way to fast. It is hot and we have to work hard. Soon our water is empty and there are no houses nor creeks along the road. We wave our empty water bottles to passing cars hoping they understand our gestures and stop to give us a water refill. They don’t understand us. When we finally reach the top we’re dead and dehydrated.
I don’t hesitate a single second when I see three persons loading up a buggy onto a trailer at the top of the pass. “Hi, excuse me, do you maybe have some water for me?“. They have and it is even cold! We gobble up everything they give to us. Once we get satisfied it is time for the regular talk, where we’re from and where we’re going etcetera. “You are going to Huntsville? You definitely should pay a visit to my brother that lives there! He would love it. I will call him too to let him know you are coming“.
We get the phone number and the address of the brother of the stranger that we met on top of a mountain and descend into Huntsville not before we take a dip in the cold Ogden river to cool off our bodies. We decide to just drive up to the house we just got the address from. Nobody home. We wait on the front porch but after 5 minutes we start to get awkward. Somebody might see us and think we have no good intentions. We decide to call the phone number.
“Hi, is this Mike?”
“Yes, this is him.”
“We are the two cyclists that met your sister on the mountain today!”
“….. two cyclists? You’ll have to remind me?”
And so it happened that his sister did not call him and this family had no idea about two cyclists and what the hell they are doing on the front porch.
Mike tells us he’ll be home in 30 minutes but that his wife might beat him to it. And indeed his wife Cindy turns up the lane after fifteen minutes and she also has no idea about the two dirty and sweaty guys at their house. She starts interrogating us and ends with the question: “So, what do you want?“. A hard question to answer. What we want is to meet people, dive into their local lives, tell our stories and listen to theirs. Oh yes, and also a shower and a bed would be nice. But it’s not the welcoming friendly face on the other side of the table and so we start doubting this whole encounter. Luckily Mike turns up just before we decide to friendly thank Cindy and just leave. He breaks the tension by telling us that we can put the bikes and pitch our tents in their garden. We drink lemonade and they make burgers and home made fries. Once everybody is at ease with each other we tell our story and they tell theirs. What started as a big awkward misunderstanding turns into a nice evening in the garden. They turn out to be passionate ‘Church of Latter-day Saints‘ goers. Before we entered Utah we knew that a lot of so-called Mormons live here, but we didn’t really have a clue about what it entailed. Mike and Cindy tell us all about it. We each even get a (very heavy..) “Book of Mormon” to bring along with us which we hesitantly accept.




It’s gonna be our eleventh day on the bike and we are busted. So when Mike offers us to bring us over the first big pass with his truck we don’t hesitate. We end up skipping also the second big pass and thus this day turns into a major Cheating Day. He drops us at the top of Big Mountain Summit (what’s in a name…). We say goodbye to our new Mormon friend Mike and start with a lovely descend over perfect tarmac and nice hairpins.
Soon we drive into Salt Lake City. Another milestone and battery-recharge stay we were looking forward too. Many cyclists accompany us on our way down, it’s nice to be surrounded by bicyclists again. We see signs urging cars to give bicyclists at least 3 feet of space. We drink a beer and celebrate making it to SLC before cycling to our Warmshowers-host for the coming days.


Sandi is 73 years old and she radiates happiness. Her husband passed away years ago and she just started to fall in love with a new man. She calls him her “guy friend”. It is too cute to hear her talk about him, like a teenager falling in love for the first time. There happens to be another cyclist here too: Derrick. He is from Canada and also cycling around the US but met a girl in Montana and is thinking about swapping the bike for her car to go on a roadtrip with her. All of this is discussed over a lovely quiche made by Sandi. Luckily for us she is not Mormon so the beer flows freely this evening, just like the cycling stories.
Derrick was here first, so he got the bed. So Jacko and me get to stay in a nice big tent in the back yard. We stay three nights and have our well-needed rest. A lot of the times Sandi is not home and Derrick leaves after the second night, meaning we have the house to ourselves a lot.
Still every time it astonishes me how trusting the people are that we meet.
On the second night we meet our Mormon friends Mike and Cindy for The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. A big happening for members of the Church of Latter-day Saints. They asked if we would be interested to visit and since we our members of the “Say Yes To Everything”-movement, we say yes. A big spectacle in a beautiful venue, but also we’re glad it’s over after 1.5 hours. We want to check out the SLC night life. Half an hour later we are in a fashionable cocktail bar and the contrast couldn’t be bigger. Derrick joins us and he turns out to be the most sociable guy ever, talking to everything and everybody.
Wingmanning us a nice girl for the night however turns out to be too big of a challenge for him.



O, dus als je “oud” bent doe je niet meer gek? Ik weet bijna zeker dat het bij jou in de genen zit en dat jij op je “ouwe dag” nog steeds mooi3 fietstochten maakt en kampeert!
Was weer mooi om te lezen.
Toch wel een kaarsje opgestoken in de ” Mormonen kerk” hè ?
Het vals spelen qua fietsen is jullie gegund , de benen moeten nog lang mee
En het vertrouwen vd mensen daar is bewonderenswaardig maar komt voor de helft natuurlijk ook door jullie verschijning 😉
Jammer dat de dates niet helemaal lukten , maar nog genoeg tijd over en zij krijgen wrs spijt 😉
Liefs xxx
Hey Marijn, fijne vent. We hebben eindelijk vakantie, en nu kunnen we op ons gemak eens al je reisverhalen lezen. Wat is dat leuk, en wat maken jullie samen veel mee. Leuk om te lezen wat je doel is van de reis, zo kennen we jou ook, en al die nieuwe mensen en culturen ontdekken. Ook petje af voor de manier van leven, als jullie niet bij een warmshower overnachten is het Spaghetti, worsten en maïskolven (lekker!) op een vuurtje warm maken. Super knap ook zo met de fiets heel de dag door weer en wind, steil tegen de vele hellingen omhoog fietsen, ik ken mensen die gaan niet fietsen bij regen, laat staan met sneeuw. We zullen aan je denken en blijven je volgen op je blog. Kijk uit en geniet vooral. Groetjes Marcel en Annemarie. PS de groeten aan Jacko