2012 Fall Tour de St. George

I’ve ridden a century (100 mile bike ride) every year since I started cycling. Last year, I did the Watchman 100 in the Fall and loved riding down in St. George. I briefly considered doing the same ride, but opted instead to do the Tour de St. George.

We’ve become good friends with the Denney family in our ward; I often ride with Brett, and Manina and Kristy (who is famous for yummy treat recipes) run together a couple times per week. Brett had never ridden a century and Manina and Kristy looked forward to running in warmer climes. We circled the day on our calendars and held way too many late-night planning sessions ironing out the details.

We drove down together, spent all day Friday shopping (I suspect the girls’ main intention for the trip). We stayed at the famed Fandel-Dinius homestead, where the accommodations are first class and the prices are very reasonable, even if a certain member of the staff is overly flatulent (Hi, Gary!).

It was cool on Saturday morning, but the first 15 miles were a long, steady climb up to Veyo so I was planning on warming up quickly. Right at 8AM I started out slowly, and Brett tried to latch on to a faster group, so we split up almost from the start. However, I ended up catching and passing him at the mile 30 aid station where he was refueling. So, I sat up and rode easy for a few miles, waiting for Brett to catch up. From there, we pretty much stayed together the rest of the way.

Brett also had to stop to tighten up his cleat, but that was our only mechanical issue on the day. We cruised back down into St. George to the mile 50 rest stop where the girls met up with us to see how we were doing. The girls need a little work on how to be an effective pit crew, but we were able to get more food and hand off some of our cool weather gear since the sun was out and St. George was warming up.

We had arrived with a pretty good sized group, but they left a few minutes before us (knocking my bike over in the process). Missing that group may have been our biggest mistake on the day, because the next 15 miles were tough. Brett and I stuck together, but we were on harsh chipseal roads out in the middle of nowhere on the road to the new airport. We caught one rider, then another one caught us and that really helped get us going again.

At the mile 75 stop I was refilling my water bottles, and I took some time to say thanks to the volunteer for spending her Saturday morning out helping out us cyclists. She replied, “Oh, I have my own selfish reasons for being here.”

She then quickly tried to backpedal, only making the situation worse. She tried to say that by volunteering she gets a free entry into the next race, and on and on. But, she kept on blushing and stuttering, and we weren’t about to let her off the hook that easy. It was a nice moment of levity amid the drudgery of the last miles of the ride, which can feel like they stretch on forever.

Brett got a second wind and started doing a lot of work to get our group of now three home to the finish line. There were several cruel climbs in the final miles, but we stuck together. We saw the leading group on one of the out-and-back sections and realized we weren’t too far behind, and were on track for a respectable finish.

We dropped down into downtown St. George where Manina and Kristy were waiting for us at the finish line. We finished tied chipped ride time of 05:32:30. Not bad for 100 miles. The gory details are on Strava.