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:

https://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, 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, 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. https://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.