LOGAN – It all began with a bike and a desire to explore.
“Cache County total – I have about 3,000 miles of biking in those 9 months,” says 24-year-old Neil Thompson of Minnesota.
He says an app on his phone helped him gamify his progress – and that’s when it got fun.
“That’s when it really kicked in, I was trying to get 100 percent of Logan … and I was like ‘I can do this, then all the cities around? I can do that too!’”
For nine months, while the college graduate’s wife finished her degree at Utah State University, Thompson was busy hitting new goals by traversing city and county roads, then mountain bike and ATV trails. If the app showed it, he rode it. He was determined to fill it all in.
Even though the midwesterner only spent less than a year living in northern Utah, it’s safe to say he saw more of the valley in that time than the explorers who settled it in 1855.
If you’re wondering where the best place to ride with the nicest pavement and least amount of cars – it’s on the south end.
“Down south of Hyrum…there is a four or five mile stretch where I got passed maybe once the whole time,” he says.
The worst place to ride may come as no surprise to locals.
“Highway 30 (State Road 30) on the west side of town,” Thompson says. “The shoulder is about this wide and cars go 55 miles per hour even coming right out of town, right past the Maverik…by the trash dump. It also smells bad there, so it’s not that fun to bike.”
The most impactful part of the whole experience for him was seeing how people live in Cache Valley.
Riding through trailer courts and past multi-million dollar homes on the bench, the midwesterner gained a broad perspective of how Utahns live.
“Seeing all the things that people care about and put on their lawns, or their bumper stickers.”
His advice to others wanting to have fun on a budget is simple.
“Buy a used bike…and have fun. Go explore.”
His exploration also offered him a new perspective.
“So many people live in a place and don’t see the place,” he realized. “They don’t understand what’s around them.”