A UTAH CYCLING ADVENTURE

DAY 1 -- ST. GEORGE to CEDAR CITY

Sunday, June 22, 1997

Tourists in automobiles who wish to go from St. George to Cedar City will head up I-15, a journey of about 50 miles. Cyclists however wouldn't want to ride on interstate highways even if it were legal. Our route was north on Utah SH 18 to Utah SH 56 then west to Cedar City, a distance of 93 miles, most of it uphill. Ron, our tour director, knew some of us (himself included) didn't really want to start the week with a 93-mile uphill ride. No sense burning one's self out on the first day, especially since it was known that the second day included a climb of nearly 5000 vertical feet in less than 20 miles. It was publicized in advance that all of the sag vehicles would haul people and bikes to Enterprise, about 45 miles out and past the steepest of the first day's climb. About half the group took advantage of this option, so Ron and I had plenty of company.

Up away from the desert floor, we began to see more and more vegetation. It was a gradual process, but green was becoming the predominant color instead of tan.

When we reached Enterprise, the temperature was in the 60's and there was a pretty good breeze blowing. Some riders even opted for jackets! Already a stark contrast to the desert floor, although it always cools down in the desert at night due to lack of humidity. We set out pretty much as a group from Enterprise, but individual riding abilities soon separated us into to groups of two's, three's and four's.

As I was riding along talking to Jane, a member of the group that I had not met before, I was telling her about my family and mentioned my son-in-law had just graduated medical school. She inquired as to what school, and when I told her the University of Oklahoma, she said her son had also just graduated from the same school. It turned out that her son knew my son-in-law and had in fact been lab partners with my son-in-law's brother who also graduated medical school that spring. What a small world! Incidentally, my son-in-law's other brother graduated from the University of Oklahoma School of Dentistry the same weekend! Three brothers (all of that family's children) graduated on the same weekend; two MD's and one DDS. Bet that doesn't happen very often!

At one point along the way, when we seemed to be at a sort of apex along the route, we could see snow-capped peaks off to the east. That evening, one of the group consulted a map and declared that those peaks were approximately 100 miles from where we were when we spotted them. That's clear air!

Cedar City was a pleasant little town. By the time we reached the motel, it was warm enough, even at nearly 6000 ft, that many of the group enjoyed a dip in the pool. After dinner, my roommate, Jim, and I walked about a mile down the road to the Dairy Queen. We told each other that the walk would offset the calories and fat grams in those big milk shakes. Right.

Jim was also the driver of the big, yellow rental truck that hauled our luggage. Jim is a cyclist, but didn't feel completely up to a week of cycling in the mountains, so volunteered to drive the truck. Jim did get in about 100 miles of cycling on the trip though. Not bad for the truck driver, huh? I'll explain as we go along how that came to be.

Day's Mileage : 48.6

Scenery this day was nice, but not very "photogenic", so here are some people pics.

Click thumbnail to see larger image.

created by John Wente, jwente49@cox.net
last modified: July 6, 1998