Advice - St. George UT

[joelpalmer]

Howdy all - I wanted to find out if anyone here is familiar with the cycling around St. George UT? I may have a job opportunity in the area and would like to get a little info on the riding if possible. I am originally from the SF Bay Area, currently living in Baltimore and I NEED to get back somewhere I can ride easily. Any information would be great.

[Miles2go]

What a great place to ride. I ran the St. George Marathon a number of years ago and have bike toured the National Parks in Southern Utah.

I know they have a couple of bike clubs and this is one link:

http://www.swubta.com/

Sorry I couldn't be more of a help but perhaps you can contact someone through the link.

Cheers,

[Second Mouse]

They've got a pretty good system of bike paths in the area. There's some info here (http://sgcity.org/parks/sgtrailsinfo.php), in case you haven't seen it.

I rode from downtown up north next to Highway 18 to The Ledges, which is maybe 8 miles north of town, and talked to people who've cycled north of there, over into Snow Canyon and back to town. It was last January when I was there, 60° in mid-afternoon, very nice. It does get very hot there during the days in the summer, though. Like 110°, regularly.

There are also several organized rides in the area, Tour de St. George (http://www.tourdestgeorge.com/news.html), that kind of thing.

Let us know how it goes.

[bvfrompc]

Since you didn't ask, I'll throw it out there. St. George is very much a Mormon community. Unless you have lived in UT, it is suprising how deep the Church of UT has its fingers in everything in a community. We had some very active friends that retired early and found St. George to be a fairly inexpesive place to live with great weather, they moved after a few years because of the church's influence.

I have only spent a few long weekends down there and always found it to be a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

If you are aprt of the church I couldn't imagine a much better place to live, if not, I think you would be suprprised after 6 months or so how dominating the church is in the state.

In my short 40-something years I have lived in MN, CA, NM, TX, CO, and UT. Utah was the only place that I have ever felt a church's presence.

[Second Mouse]

bvfrompc makes a very good point. More non-Mormons are moving to St. George, the other end of the spectrum (Las Vegas) is and hour and a half away and you can get a drink at most restaurants, but there's definitely a different social structure in most of Utah as compared to just about anywhere else. You can feel very excluded from/by the dominant culture.

Utah has a lot to recommend it, if you can manage to deal with the weirdness. Lots of folks can't.

[Aloyzius]

I wish I could move to Saint George. Great riding most of the year.

Utah is growing up, and getting more cosmopolitan, which is a good thing. Also more of a sprawl, unfortunately. But it is getting better. The religious conservatism certainly isn't as bad as some areas of the south, though it can get frustrating at times. But I must say it has gotten much more tolerant than it used to be.

[waldowales]

St. George is a great place to ride, except it's plenty hot in the summer. Check out the Utah Mountain Biking website for trail information. http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/

[joelpalmer]

Thanks for all the replies. I have a few friends living around the state so I knew about the LDS issue (main reason I didn't ask) and the info on riding is fantastic. The heat is less of an issue for me than here, I love dry heat and can't stand humidity. I'm used to riding in ~100F weather without issue, so at least part of the warmer months shouldn't be a problem.

[Nycycle]

To sum it up, going to St. George with out a Mountain Bike is like going to Church without a Bible.....

I take mine down every spring for a week.