Desert Rampage bike race

Sunday I posted about a bike race we did in January. This post is about one in March.  After this I will be all caught up on bike trip documentation. My form of spring cleaning.

March 1 was Red Rock Desert Rampage bike race in Saint George, Utah.  Team tradition is to rent a huge house and fill it with teammates. Hang out, eat together, ride together, and, oh, yeah, do the race.  Well, at least for some.  Drew raced but I just went down to hang out and ride a lot.

Because of his work schedule, Drew drove up from Vegas.  I rode down with friend Monique.  The weather was not looking bike-friendly at Cedar City on the way down.

But went we arrived it was perfect, so we got out and rode Barrel Roll.

Crazy beautiful scenery.

Even crazier with the saturation bumped up.

Monique and Drew

The next day, Friday, there were more friends around and some wanted to pre-ride the race course so we all went out together.  Some of us split off to a different way out to Sidewinder, etc. We went up some parts of Cove Wash. 

Most of the part of Cove Wash we rode was through the Upper Triassic Shinarump Conglomerate, a coarse grained sandstone commonly stained by iron-manganese oxides and containing poorly preserved petrified wood, a piece of which Ellen found while scrambling.  This rock was deposited in braided steams around 200 million years ago, when dinosaurs were first wandering about.

Cool erosion and that iron staining.

Some parts were rideable; some were not.

After the wash section, we found lots of real single track.

Yum

On the way back, we dropped into the wash sooner than we should have and ended up walking a lot

Drew is fascinated by the rock.  Good husband.

We eventually got cliffed out to where we had to scramble up the steep sides of the canyon, not easy in bike cleats and dragging bikes, but a great adventure nonetheless!

The end of the trail for bikes.  Had to scramble out from here.

We made it back to the house just as the rain started again. 

Everybike was stuck inside for a while.

Saturday was race day.  More than half the 25 people at the flop house raced, including Drew.  Monique and I and some others chose to ride the City Creek trails, which were new to me and quite enjoyable. 

Back at the house, everyone rejoined to tell tails of racing and riding. Post race at the flop house is every kind of party.

No post race shower necessary: there is a hot tub! Is this what you would want your renters to be doing if you owned this house?

Always competitive, Erica, Sally and I held swimming races in the pool.  I lost horribly but that was the fun part.

More things you don't want to happen if you own a rental.

Unofficial team photo.  All but one of these people were staying at this house!

On Sunday the tradition of riding Jem-Goulds-Hurricane loop continued.  Monique and I tried to keep up with the fast kids but ended up not. 

That's fine by me. More time for fun photos.

Take a closer look at that funny sign.

Saint George has some excellent riding, especially in March!