A UTAH CYCLING ADVENTURE

DAY 4 -- BRYCE CANYON to SPRINGDALE

Wednesday, June 25, 1997

This was the day of the much-talked-about BIG DOWNHILL. The first part of the trip was retracing a portion of the previous day's journey from Bryce Canyon back along Utah SH 12 through Red Canyon to US 89 where we turned south toward Hatch and Mt. Carmel Junction, our lunch stop. SH 12 down to US 89 was indeed downhill, but once we were on US 89, we were going slightly uphill for miles. There was some talk about the BIG DOWNHILL having been a myth.

It was somewhere along US 89 just a few miles past Hatch that my rear tire blew. The tread was worn completely through. I beat myself up pretty good for not having replaced that tire before the tour. I just had not realized that it was THAT worn. Harry, rolled up behind me not long after I stopped and began helping me with the repair. I put a dollar bill in the tire as a boot (yes, this really does work), put in my spare tube and pumped it up to a few psi less than I normally carry. We hadn't ridden more than a half mile when Suzanne, one of the tour organizers and sag driver, came up in her van. She stopped to see if we needed anything, and I decided to ride in the van to avoid possibly being stranded if the tire repair didn't hold. Suzanne said she knew that at least one of the other tour participants had brought spare tires along. I hoped I could borrow or buy one of these when we caught up with the luggage truck.

That's how I missed out on riding the BIG DOWNHILL. Yep, the famous downhill began just a few miles from where Suzanne picked me up. We stopped briefly at the next highway junction where some of the other sag vehicles were waiting. I learned that there was a spare tire on one of the sag vehicles, but the sag drivers were all adamant that the road ahead was not suitable for cycling because of road construction and heavy traffic. So, several cyclists were convinced to load up and ride in the sag vehicles, not knowing at the time that they would be missing the BIG DOWNHILL. The sag drivers themselves, mostly being non-cyclists, had not noticed that the stretch ahead was all downhill. Oh well, we were having so much fun and enjoying the spectacular southwest Utah scenery so much, we couldn't complain too much.

The lunch stop in Mt. Carmel Junction was in a parking lot in front of an old one-room schoolhouse. Inside the school, some ladies were making a quilt the old-fashioned way: by hand. They were very pleasant and friendly and allowed us to use the rest room in the back of the building. It was quite cool and pleasant inside the building even though it was not air-conditioned. The thick native stone walls served as an excellent barrier to the heat, which was beginning to increase now at this somewhat lower altitude.

Many of our group had been ahead of the sag vehicles and had ridden all the way down the BIG DOWNHILL. We who had sagged listened to their tales somewhat enviously.

Gary, Suzanne's husband, was one of the ones who had ridden down, but he had a hair-raising experience on the way. While cruising along at between 30 and 35 mph, his handle bar binder bolt had snapped, leaving his handlebars "floating". He managed to get his hands on his brake levers and come to a stop without crashing, which is a great credit to Gary's bike handling abilities. There was nothing amongst the tools and parts aboard the luggage truck to substitute for this bolt, so Gary volunteered to drive the truck the rest of the way to Zion Canyon and let Jim ride his bike. Jim again jumped at the opportunity to ride.

While at the lunch stop, I located Jack, the owner of the spare tires, and he generously let me have one of his tires and even helped me mount in on my wheel. I was back in business! I later paid Jack for the tire which I used through the rest of the summer.

Jim and Fred and I set off together after lunch along Utah SH 9 toward Zion Canyon. We knew that we could not ride through the tunnel near the entrance to Zion National Park on our bikes. The sag drivers had arranged to wait near the tunnel entrance to ferry us through. Just outside Mt. Carmel Junction, we immediately began to climb. Some of the grades were pretty steep, but at least there were some less steep stretches and even an occasional slight downhill. After the BIG CLIMB, this didn't seem so bad, but our progress was pretty slow. I don't know how many miles we had ridden when we were struggling along at 8 or 9 mph on what looked like a slight downhill. We were riding along together and making jokes about becoming food for the buzzards when a big green Lincoln appeared. We stopped to talk to Bonnie, and when we turned to look back, we immediately saw that the apparent downhill was indeed uphill. It was really amazing. One could look in both directions and it appeared downhill. But looking back the way we had come definitely looked more downhill than the way we had been going. And, of course, our legs had been telling us we were not going downhill.

Bonnie convinced us that if we continued to ride, we would be very late getting into Springdale, so we loaded up the bikes and rode in air-conditioned comfort the few remaining miles to Zion National Park. Traffic was pretty heavy in the park, the roads are narrow with no shoulders and there was another tunnel several miles into the park where we would again have to load the bikes onto the car and be ferried through. Bonnie didn't want to deal with this, so after some discussion, we decided to remain in the car through the park and on to our motel. It was a wise decision. The park road was indeed poorly suited to cycling and there was a very steep decent with tight switchbacks after the second tunnel. Some of our group rode all the way through (except the tunnels), but Jim, Fred and I were happy with our decision.

After cleaning up and resting a bit at the motel, several of the group piled into some of the sag vehicles and headed back into the park for some serious sight-seeing. It was truly spectacular. Zion is totally different from the other parks and monuments we had seen. In this park, you are on the floor of the canyon looking up, whereas in the others, you are on the rim looking down. Also, the rock formations here are not at all like those of Cedar Breaks, Red Canyon or Bryce Canyon. Zion is more like what you might expect to see in Colorado or New Mexico.

Back at the motel, we heard another tale of a hair-raising experience. Dan was coming down the steep decent after the second tunnel at a pretty high rate of speed when his front tire blew due to excessive heating caused by the constant braking. Dan was able to get stopped without incident, which was not much short of a miracle considering he was on as steep decent on a narrow road with no shoulders in heavy vehicular traffic. Dan was able to repair the damage and ride the rest of the way to the motel.

After a nice dinner on the patio of a Chinese restaurant and a stroll around the town, Jim and I turned in early. It had been a long day and we were planning an early start on our last day. We wanted to get into St. George before the thermometer reached 100 if possible. The bike shop in Springdale did not have a bolt that would work on Gary's handle bars, so he had once again volunteered to drive the truck and let Jim get in some more miles.

Day's Mileage: 37.5

PICTURES (click on thumbnails for larger view)

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