Why would someone want to bicycle across the Salt Flats?

And what does a bicycle trip have to do with the location of Interstate-80?

Read on.

First, be clear on the fact that the Great Salt Lake Desert has nearly killed people. The salt crust conceals sticky mud that mires wheels, feet and hooves.

For instance, the Donner-Reed party took so long stumbling across the wasteland that they got caught in early snowstorms in the Sierra Nevada, where of course many of them froze and starved to death.

But Big Bill Rishel didn't worry about any of that ancient history when he decided to bicycle from Terrace to Grantsville in 1896.

William D. Rishel, big indeed at more than 6 feet tall, was a go-for-it-athlete and all-around life enthusiast. Later, he would become Utah's most fervent advocate for automobile travel. But before automobiles came bicycles, and Rishel was big into bicycles and the Utah racing scene.

When William Randolph Hearst dreamed up a coast-to-coast bicycle relay race as a promotion for his newspapers, he chose Rishel to manage the Elko-to-Rock Springs section of the race. Big Bill's job was to choose the route and the racers.

He chose a route calculated to please the race promoters and the governor--through Salt Lake City. In order to do this, the route would have to skirt the southern end of the Great Salt Lake, where no biker had ever gone before.

Salt Lake City's arch-rival, Ogden, took offense at the snub, for besides leaving Ogden out of the race, Rishel also left out Ogden's "crackajack" bicyclists. The Standard-Examiner accordingly ridiculed Rishel's route.

Rishel decided to test the route himself. He and friend Charlie Emise took their bikes by train to Terrace, a railroad town in west-central Box Elder County. Armed with a couple of canteens, sandwiches and a rough map showing where they might find a small spring, the two rode off at 2 a.m. These guys weren't wimps by any means. Remember, they weren't riding today's lightweight mountain bikes; these were early heavy steel bicycles.

And these bicycles were not about to skim over the top of the mud flats. Bill and Charlie could barely push them through the mud, and in fact carried them much of the way. At times they could ride -- in a slogging sort of way -- through sandy stretches.

The summer sun blazed down on them. If they knew their history, they would have felt kinship with the Donner-Reed party, Jedediah Smith and others who had suffered across the Salt Flats.

The canteens didn't last long, but fortunately they found a trickle of water at Cook's Spring. As day turned into evening, the two found themselves in more sand, marshes and mud -- and beset by mosquitoes and gnats. Finally, after 22 hours and 100 miles, they rode into Grantsville.

Agonizing as the ride was, Rishel stuck to his guns on the route. He arranged to set up water stations for the riders.

In the meantime, Ogden arranged a "race within a race." Ogden's best bikers, riding north of the lake, would race to beat Rishel's riders to Echo.

In the end, a rainstorm forced all of the racers to take the northern route. The Ogden papers jeered "Bedouin Bill." But some 30 years later he had the last laugh when he helped make sure the Lincoln Highway went through Salt Lake City -- not Ogden -- and straight across the Salt Flats to Wendover. Surely that crazy relay actually influenced the route of a major highway -- which later became I-80.

Big Bill teaches me this: You never know what will happen when you go for it. What you learn today just might change the future.

Kristen Rogers-Iversen lives in Salt Lake City.

Sources: Ogden Standard-Examiner, The Salt Lake Tribune, "History Blazer," published by Utah State Historical Society, and Utah Historical Quarterly