June 23, 2007
Miles: 85, 2580 ft climbing
Today we got an even earlier start than originally planned--7:30
instead of 8:00--to beat the expected 100+ temperatures in St. George,
I suspect.
We had a paceline going until we encountered the Utah State games road
race. We first saw signs for the 20-mile turnaround, then a
Sheriff’s truck was lurking behind us for a bit. After it passed,
followed by the lead racer, we figured out that we were in the middle
of a race. (I hope the next time they don’t send a diesel vehicle
to lead the riders, though.) And when the chase group passed us,
several jumped on. I even hear that a couple of racers were
drafting off of Cam for a while. I was a bit surprised that there
were no race officials at the turnaround; they're on the honesty
system, I guess.
After turning to the south at Newcastle, we had headwinds for most of
the way into St. George. Lunch was a little further down the road
than the route sheet specified. Luckily Ken was at the top of the
last big climb with water and ice.
More water and ice from Judith at one of the Snow Canyon overlooks gave
me what I needed to get to the motel in St. George via a route that
seemed more like a landing pattern for a jumbo jet, passing quite a few
new real estate developments. Somehow she missed Andrew, who
waited at the Snow Canyon exit while I did my photography thing; I
shared some with him. My room wasn’t quite ready so I cooled my
jets at the DQ across the street.
Here are a couple of shots from Snow Canyon. It has a nice bike
path that lets you get pretty close to some of the formations.
On Sunday, Andrew and Judith gave me a ride to the Las Vegas
airport. What a zoo. Luckily, I just made an earlier flight
back to Sacramento.
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