HOODOO 500 OVERVIEW
Brief Route Description
Generally speaking, riders follows a course starting in St. George, and traveling through Hurricane, Colorado City, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, Carmel Junction, Bryce, Tropic, Escalante, Boulder, Torrey, Panguitch, Cedar City and back to St. George. It’s a loop course on wonderful, well-maintained, quiet roads with little traffic (in most places) and breath-taking scenery.
Riders interested in seeing the entire course at a leisurely pace (a week), in full daylight, should check out our Planet Ultra Tour of Southern Utah.
JUST SOME OF THE REASONS WHY THE HOODOO 500
IS THE BEST ULTRACYCLING RACE ON THE PLANET
Hoodoo 500 is a qualifier for the Race Across AMerica (RAAM)!
Logistics:
The route is a perfect loop, starting and finishing at the race headquarters, the Best Western Abbey Inn in beautiful St. George, Utah.
Event headquarters is a nice, clean, roomy, modern and very reasonably priced hotel. The check in, meeting, start and finish lines, and post-event awards banquet are all in one central location.
St. George is about ninety minutes from Las Vegas and only a five to six hour drive from most of southern California. You can fly directly to St. George or take an inexpensive shuttle from Las Vegas. Rental vehicles are readily available in either location.
The Route:
Not a single inch of the route is repeated. The scenery is amazing. The route goes through, around or by three National Parks: Zion, Bryce and Capitol Reef; three National Monuments: Pipe Springs, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Cedar Breaks; countless Utah State Parks including Anasazi, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, Kodachrome and Snow Canyon, and meanders in and out of the Dixie National Forest.
Other than the very short stretches of road getting in and out of St. George and Cedar City, and the ten or so miles before Panguitch, traffic on over ninety-eight percent of the route is virtually non-existent. There are only a handful of traffic lights and stop signs, and zero urban blight.
Road conditions are stellar! Utah takes wonderful care of their roads and highways. Generally speaking, the pavement is smooth, without potholes or expansion gaps or long stretches of rough road where cracks have been filled in but remain bumpy and uneven. The roads are virtually litter and glass free!
The Race Format:
Relay Teams choose their own strategies. There are few restrictions on when or how often riders may exchange. A team may have one, two, three or four riders on the course at the same time, in a team paceline. It’s a ton of fun! Looking for teammates? Post a message on the Hoodoo 500 Facebook page. Be sure and include your contact info.
Solo and team riders may bring an unlimited number of crew members and one or two crew vehicles. This allows riders to have fresh and alert crew members at all times (which is especially important on the second day, in all hours of darkness, and for those riders who may take more than 40 hours to complete the course).
When the clock stops at the finish line, we’ll all enjoy the Post-Event Banquet – a buffet brunch, fun awards and sharing of newly created, but long-lasting memories of the awesome Hoodoo 500 experience!
