Fred just before packing

Fred in two suitcases, waiting to be shipped

Our bike is a Santana Arriva triple which we bought from friends in CRW. Over the years, we had seen them on rides with their son on the triple. He grew to a teenager and now we get to use it for a while, until our son is also too embarrassed to be seen on a bike with his parents. It's fun for him, now, though, and on our first ride, he christened the triple "Fred", and that name has stuck.

Snow Canyon

An early challenge for the tour was to get the bike out to Utah. It has couplers, so that it can fit in two suitcases, but it isn't exactly small or light. Each suitcase is oversized, and when all packed up, they both weighed in at 60 pounds. We found we could ship them by ground and have a local shop at the other end assemble the bike for less than the airlines would have charged for overweight and oversized suitcases.

Riding on the Snow Canyon Loop Trail

That meant an extra day riding instead of assembling a bike. Sunset Cycles in St. George had Fred ready to go when we arrived. Although they had never seen a triple before, we had send lots of pictures, labeled components, and instructions for them, and when we got there, Fred was in perfect shape.

Snack break

We used our extra day to ride up Snow Canyon, a park just north of St. George. While only a 26-mile ride, it had an altitude gain of 2800 feet. One of our concerns was braking. The triple has an Aria drum brake, but our total weight is well over 400 pounds. On a long downhill, we figured we would really need the drum to keep our speed down.

The Snow Canyon loop train meanders through miles of redrock. The ride gave us a chance to acclimate to the altitude, the heat, and the sun. For us east-coast types, the climate change was pretty dramatic. The weather was consistently hot, dry, and sunny. Without the humidity, the heat was easy to deal with, although the intense sun required a lot of sunscreen for those of us who just completed a long snow-filled winter.

The return trip was all downhill, and it was quite exhilarating. The drum brake kept our speed nicely under control. We did a stop at a picnic area to check the brake. It was smoking hot, and smelled like a truck brake gone bad. But it worked perfectly. That was also an ideal opportunity to play some catch, and make sure that six-year-olds were also having fun. We carried a whiffle ball in the rear pack for just such occasions.

St. George to Springdale

Out of St. George

The following day our real trip started. Getting out of St. George is not hard, but it isn't exactly pretty either. The first 15 miles are through an expanse of urban sprawl. St. George is one of the fastest growing cities in the US, which means there are developments everywhere. As we left St. George, the desert opened up more. For people from New England used to tree-lined streets, the views are endless. As is the wind. As we approached our first real climb to a mesa we had the additional pleasure of a 20 MPH headwind. It was to be a theme of the ride.

Once on the mesa, the view opens up even more, and we knew we were really in the west. Big mountains, vast spaces, and a road that disappears in the distance. There are lots of places of interest to a 6 year old, so we made sure to stop frequently and check them out. An ostrich farm provided a nice break from the bike.

An ostrich farm resident

Small town, UT

Springdale is the last town before Zion National Park. Our second day was spent sightseeing and hiking through Zion. We could easily have spent more time here, but our week-long trip didn't allow it.

Zion at sunset

Springdale to Glen Canyon

Breakfast at the hotel

From Springdale, there is a road that heads through the park, and then climbs gradually to a higher mesa. There are spectacular views of the park from the road as it climbs up switchbacks.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Near the top, there is a tunnel where bikes are not allowed. If you are biking on your own, park rangers will help you find a vehicle to take your bike. If you are in a group as we were, the group is responsible for providing bicycle transportation through the tunnel. Our triple is pretty long, but we were able to get it into the baggage truck.

Playing catch during a break

The other side of the tunnel has perhaps some of the most wonderful riding of the whole trip. While the jaw-dropping cliffs of Zion are gone, there is an almost otherworldly terrain of hills, rock colors, and desert plants. There are also a fair number of tour busses and traffic. Being on a triple, we garnered a bit of attention. One particular tour bus was stopped when we rode by, and a few members took pictures of our bike. Shortly after that encounter, the tour bus overtook us, and at the next turnoff, we were the photographic center of attention of a busload of people. While flattering, I would have thought that Zion is more interesting than us.

Fred draws a crowd

Open countryside

Keeping a six year old happy and entertained on the bike was surprisingly easily. He's been riding with us since he was 10 months old, so he is certainly no stranger to biking but we weren't sure what he would think about riding every day with only adults around. He did great, and looked forward to biking every day. Our rules were pretty simple: ice cream every day and a "bottom breaks" at least every 10 miles, which would include a snack, or playing catch or doing something that was non-bike related. He really liked riding with a group, since there were always other riders around to wave to. He also made sure never to waste an opportunity to be a ham when people were admiring the bike, or taking pictures.

Our first real downhill brought us to Mt. Carmel Junction, where lunch at "The Restaurant" is a must. From there it was back uphill for the last 15 miles.

Glen Canyon to Bryce

High Zion

While there were frequent winds, this day had around 4000 feet of climbing to Bryce which is at 9600 feet. This was our first day of continuous serious headwind, which we found out were around 25 MPH. As the road wound up to higher elevations, the scenery, while wonderful, was nothing like that of Zion. It looked more like the wide-open West. Once we turned off Highway 89, onto 12, we were back in a canyon wonderland going through Dixie National Forest. A little bike path near the road, which has almost no traffic, took us up through a canyon filled with red ravines and pine trees.

Renee at a campground cabin

The canyon was quite empty until we reached the edge of the Bryce. A huge complex of hotels and tourist places interrupt the landscape, but provided us a place to stay.


















Bryce to Panguiltch

Bryce

We spent the next morning walking through Bryce. If you haven't been there, it is difficult to describe. Pictures provide only a glimpse of this amazing place that just shows up in the middle of a nondescript terrain filled with fir trees. We had lunch at the lodge in the park, a wonderful classic building that was nearly empty despite the crowds.

After that came a 25-mile downhill ride to Panguiltch. We actually had to pedal, since our headwinds were with us the whole day. Panguiltch is a small town at around 6000 ft. Even though it wasn't very high, it was cool. The minute the sun went down, it was downright cold.

Bryce

Wandering through Bryce

Panguiltch to Cedar City

We knew this was our longest riding day, at 62 miles with a climb. It started out cold. The farm irrigation systems had sprayed layers of ice on the ground. Breakfast at the campground was chilly, and we started the ride with a lot of clothes.

Shadows

Heading up to Cedar Breaks

The first 33 miles from Panguiltch to Brian's Head took us up 4500 feet to the high point of the ride. Brian's Head is at 10,600 feet. We climbed the first 17 miles with our son, so that he would get to experience a serious climb, then we let him sag. He loved to sag, since he got to go back and forth and wave at the riders, and we appreciated the lighter load for the rest of the climb.

Cedar Breaks - high point of the trip

We were both pretty beat but exhilarated when we reached the top. Without a constant grade, it was difficult to zone out and climb. The road would vary from near-flat to short steep sections frequently. As always though, the ride went through a variety of amazing scenery, with the top boasting (something about the cliffs that dropped off thousands of feet to the canyon below).

At the top, our son was enjoying lunch, and the company of the two 15 year-old granddaughters of Lucy. He was not very pleased with the idea of leaving that situation, but the promise of a big downhill was pretty good enticement to get him back on the bike.

After a couple of miles, we saw the tell-tale truck downhill sign, which claimed an 8- to 10- percent grade for the next 10 miles. We stopped to tighten the drum brake cable, and started down. Without the drum brake, this would have been a difficult descent. The drum kept our speed down to about 20 MPH, which just the occasional need for the rim brakes. About half way, I was getting pretty concerned about how hot the drum brake might be. We saw a little recreational area with swings and pulled in. While our son played on the swings, I felt the back of the bike. Just putting a hand near the drum, I could feel the heat radiating. Even on the other side of the bike, the freewheel was hot. After 15 minutes, the bike was cooler, we all had a nice break, and we continued the descent. The canyon eventually opened up, and the incline lessened to about 6 percent. As I released the brake, the bike quickly went up to 40 MPH, and would have kept speeding up if I hadn't kept some brake applied. By this time, it was hot and dry. Pulling into Cedar City, the temperatures were in the high 90s. Even though it was very dry, I still missed the weather of Panguiltch.

Cedar City to St. George

The last bit of the ride into Cedar City was not very scenic, so I was expecting our last day not to be very nice. I was quite pleasantly surprised. We had another 60-mile day, but it was all downhill, it what was a wonderful, wide valley with a gentle descent. We just coasted along for most of the day at around 18 MPH. Sometimes we actually had to peddle. As we dropped about 2500 feet, the temperatures moved into the low 100s, but with low humidity and a nice breeze, it was pleasant. The major problem was preventing sunburn. Any missed spot meant burn. Any place where I hadn't caked on the SPF30 sunscreen had more sun than I would have preferred.

We made it!

There is a 10-mile stretch in the valley where the only option is to ride on an interstate highway. I've never ridden on an interstate highway before. I had always imagined it to be a silk-like ribbon of high-speed wonder, particularly where we had a nice 6- percent downhill. It isn't that way. The parents in us decided that a six year old should ride in the sag during this part of the ride, and we were really happy about that decision. The side of the highway consists of rumble strips, ex-truck tires, and random pieces of metal on a poorly paved base. Add to that triple-trailer trucks going by, and a 75 MPH speed limit, and it just wasn't much fun. We were able to hold 40-45 MPH, but that was mostly so it would be over soon. The riding consisted mostly of choosing the part of the road that was least-bad, with the fewest scary-looking pieces of metal. We were quite very happy to get back onto the nice quiet frontage roads.

We made it back to our hotel, and our starting point, which meant that we had the sad task of bringing our triple back to the bike shop to be disassembled and sent back home.