SR-17

So remember how I said I needed a break?  Well, I decided to extend our break.  It is so sunny and warm here in St George that I couldn't bring myself to go back to Salt Lake, so here I am early Sunday morning writing from the business center of the Crystal Inn in St George.  Oh... and remember how I said I was going to run a portion of the Ironman St George run course... yeah that didn't happen either.  I woke up and got ready to run and my legs were SO achy.  Not really sore, just achy.  I don't know what it is but it is very frustrating.  I think I landed wrong snowboarding or something because they just hurt.  So I decided to take a few days off of running and scale back my distances, which will most likely mean I will be doing the half marathon distance in May instead of the marathon distance.  It's okay, there is another marathon in October that I have my eye on.  Anyway, because I did not run yesterday, I decided to see what other state roads are close to St George.  Also, because I decided to ride, I also decided to extend our stay one more day... it didn't take much to convince K Jo.  I looked at some maps and saw SR-59 which extends from Hurricane about 22 miles to the Utah/Arizona border and thought, "Perfect, out and back about 45 miles."  So I made a map and an elevation profile yesterday morning.  I had breakfast and we checked out and drove around St George for about an hour.  I hit the bike shop and bought chain lube cause my chain was pretty thirsty and squeaky.  After we checked in, I lubed up my chain, got on my bike and went, "AAAAAHHHHH".  Turns out that even though you ride once or twice a week during the winter for an hour each time, it really does not prepare your tush for a nearly four hour ride.  My butt is sore!  Great, now my legs ache and I have a sore butt.  So, K Jo and I went exploring the hotel.  They have a huge outdoor pool and the weather was amazing.  I also remembered from perusing maps that there is another state road near St George that is only 6 miles long so I decided to make yesterday a swim/bike day.  I swam in the pool for about 20 minutes and the water was AMAZING.  I also rode SR-17. 

SR-17 begins in La Verkin at SR-9.  It dips down to La Verkin Creek where it begins to climb in a north by north-west direction.  It then passes through the small town of Toquerville and shortly thereafter it curves back to the south-west then back again north-west where it continues to climb until it terminates at I-15.  It is 6 miles long.  Although I ached to ride 45 miles by going out and back on SR-59, I decided my sore bum couldn't handle that.  I also didn't want to only ride 12 miles so I started this ride in the middle of Hurricane.  I parked at the Family Dollar, put on my shoes and helmet and began my ride by heading west on SR-9.  I soon found that SR-9 is under construction and had to dodge traffic and ride on the sidewalk.  Soon, I made it through construction to the Virgin River which is at the bottom of a breathtaking gorge.  I am still kicking myself for not taking pictures, but here is a picture I found on Google Maps of the bridge spanning the gorge:

I continued on unharmed by the traffic or the sidewalk and finally made it to the beginning of SR-17.  I sped down the hill toward La Verkin Creek and relished in the fact that I was riding at 30+ mph in January without having to wear tights or a jacket... Nope just my bib shorts and my jersey.  When I reached the bottom, I began to climb and you know me, love me some climbing.  This route has a narrow shoulder but there is not really a ton of traffic, so the climb, although moderately difficult, was nice.  I stopped near the freeway to snap a picture of the end sign below... gotta love that azure sky... and turned around after passing under the freeway.  I again grinned from ear to ear as I screamed down what I felt to be a well earned descent back into La Verkin.  I crossed the creek and began the climb back to the SR-9 junction, fought traffic and the sidewalk back through construction to the Family Dollar where I used the facilities and bought a coke and some salt n vinegar pringles... so luxurious after a ride... I put my bike on the car and headed back to St George where K Jo and I had dinner and watched a movie in our hotel room.  Another great day.  SR-17 is state road number 23.  I rode 19.5 miles today in 1:10:05, averaging 16.7 mph.  Top speed was somewhere around 35 mph, my computer got reset on the way back to the hotel before I could see the top speed.  Thus far I have ridden 700.7 miles, 252.3 miles of state roads.  Thanks for reading!

If you look closely, you can see that this used to be a US-50 sign.