Freewheeling! – Biking Blissfully Along Our New Path

My wife and I have a newfound joy: Riding our bikes side-by-side from Spring City to Mt. Pleasant, along a lovely new pathway.

I’ve been making that same short trip via bicycle since we moved here, 12 years ago, pedaling up S.R. 117, which was fine, if a bit unnerving, having cars and trucks go flying past at high speeds. So, while I could get myself from here to there via pedal-power, it was never my most enjoyable 5-miles on a bicycle.

For years we’d been hearing about plans for a detached pathway, running parallel to the highway, which sounded wonderful, especially as vehicle traffic along 117 continued to increase.

Five years ago, a Spring City Youth Council lobbied enthusiastically for this path, and we got our hopes up. I remained, however, relegated to that same death-defying, white-knuckle ride along the barely existent shoulder of a major highway.

I never lost hope entirely, but I had begun to wonder if this much anticipated path would come during my lifetime.

Well… It did!

With a lot of help from Monte Bona, director of the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area, and the Mount Pleasant City Council, it actually happened.

When we first saw the earth-moving equipment along the east side of 117, we thought it was too good to be true and wondered if workers were just laying pipe.

But then, as the semblance of an actual path began to take shape, our hopes soared—our long promised path was becoming a reality!
So eager was my wife that she wouldn’t wait for the asphalt… she mounted her fancy city bike (a bike not at all made for such terrain) and rode the newly graded gravel from one end to the other.

“How was it?” I queried. She replied with a single word: “Heavenly!”

I rinsed the dirt and dust off her fancy bike, and we waited impatiently for the paving, which came two weeks later.

Then it was onto our bikes to roll merrily along those 5 miles of beautiful blacktop and back again, blessedly unconcerned with the traffic speeding along the detached highway. ‘Twas a true Hallelujah moment!

That first ride together was purely for pleasure, but since then we’ve ridden the path to get ourselves to dental appointments, workout dates at the gym, visits to the grocery store. (I recently rode the path all the way to Terrell’s just to buy a single donut.)

And it turns out the path is a great way to meet friends and neighbors. Whenever an avid cyclist we know is spotted coming towards us, we always hold out our gloved hands to give him friendly hand-slap as we pass.

I recently rode up behind a neighbor couple I’d never seen on bikes before. “Nice bikes,” I said, noting they were easily 20 years old. “Thanks,” they replied. “We haven’t ridden them in years but finally got them out of storage and pumped up the tires.”

We sometimes see a group of three older women riding together on their three-wheeled e-bikes, and we always make the same joke: that they’re a female biker ‘gang’ and that we’d better watch ourselves. (I don’t know how much longer it will be funny, but it still seems to make us all smile.)

We have friends in town who occasionally propose a foursome ride to Mt Pleasant for lunch at a favorite sandwich shop.
Once, my wife borrowed a neighbor’s tandem bike, to take her blind sister on an exhilarating two-wheel thrill-ride along the path to their Mother’s house.

There are walkers on this path, and joggers; there are dog-walkers, and mothers pushing strollers; there are serious cyclists on their expensive, carbon-frame racing bikes, and kids on their brand new BMX bikes that they got for Christmas.

I once rounded up a group of 20 youngsters, helping them oil chains, pump-up tires, adjust handlebars, and get ready for a gleeful group ride to the end of the path and back. (Of course we had to have someone meet us at the midway point with root-beer floats.)

This same path is slated to be extended farther southward, eventually to Gunnison, and possibly beyond.

So, if you have an old bike that hasn’t been ridden for awhile, why not get those tires inflated, and give our new path a try?

And, if I happen to see you approaching from the opposite direction, I’ll be sure to hold out my hand to give you a friendly hand-slap as we pass!