Southwest Biking Roadtrip Day 1 - Virgin and driving

This trip has started off with a BANG! Day 2 and we're already on 40+ miles of some of the best trails I've ever ridden. We're also on 12+ hours of driving... but it's worth it. I'm going to write about a day at a time due to too much awesomeness to include more than that in one blog post, so bear with me since I'll be a day behind our adventures.

Friday at around 4:30 we set off from Redlands, destination Hurricane, UT. We expected to hit boatloads of traffic leaving town, but managed to make it out OK and with only a quick stop in Vegas for some food, we made it all the way in just under 6 hours. Checked into the Comfort Inn and it was about 30 minutes before we were both asleep. We woke up to sun and a free breakfast (not bad for a 45$/night hotel), so we knew right away it was going to be a good day.

Nice view to wake up to...

The first biking of our roadtrip was on a little trail called Hurricane Rim/Jem trail. All I can say is gorgeous views and super fun single track. Nothing crazy technical about this trail, but it was definitely my fave in the St. George area so far.

Day 1 trail map

I started out smiling.. had a brief crappy moment when I "almost" got a flat, and finished up smiling just as big as when I started. I say "almost" because I run tubeless tires and with a little swift pumping on Russell's part, we managed to keep me full of air despite the hole.

Some pics...

Getting started on Hurricane Rim trail

Jem Trail

Start of Jem trail

a neat little biker friendly feature

And then... lunch at Oscars in Springdale, after a disappointing discovery that our fave pizza place was not yet open, and it was back in the car.

on the road again....

About 3.5 hours in we realized we weren't sure where the next gas station was so we figured we should stop at the next exit we saw to fill up. No problem right? America is full of gas stations. Well... the next exit, turned out to be... Green River... 60 miles away!!! We were at a quarter tank or less when we realized how far we had to go, and this resulted in my sweating and wringing my hands in the passenger seat for an hour as we urged our truck to just make it a little further on the little gas we had. We were well into the low gas light zone when we finally arrived in Green River. I have never been so glad to see a gas-n-go.

We finally pulled into our cabin at Monument RV at around 9:30pm, chipper from the full tank of gas and excited for the next day. The cabin heat was questionable, but we cozied into our warm sleeping bags and all was good. Better than good. See you tomorrow.