SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (January 29, 2022) — The Wild Horse Dirt Fondo is the longest-running gravel race in Utah’s West Desert, introducing many riders from the Wasatch Front and beyond to the joys of desert dirt roads. This year’s event will take place on April 30, 2022 in Delle, Utah.
Photo Chris Magerl
Starting in the spring of 2022, Salty & Stupid Cycling will take over hosting the Wild Horse gravel race from Quick Release Racing, adding it to their popular Salty Lizard 100 and Stupid Pony events and creating a new West Desert gravel race series. Longtime organizer of the Wild Horse Chris Magerl said of the move, “I am excited to pass on The Wild Horse to Bobby Kennedy and the Salty and Stupid Cycling crew. Bobby [Kennedy] loves getting lost on the endless west desert roadways as much as I do, and like me, is captivated by being on a bike in that vast, beautiful landscape,” adding, “The low-key vibe of The Wild Horse lives on.”
Bobby Kennedy, co-owner of Salty & Stupid Cycling, expressed joy at the addition of The Wild Horse to the company roster of rides. “We can’t wait to be involved in one of the best rides in Utah! We’ve been fans of the route for as long as the cabins out there have been abandoned.” With the addition of the Wild Horse to the Salty Lizard 100 and the Stupid Pony, riders will have the choice to enter any of the rides singly or as part of the brand new Wild Pony-Lizard gravel series. Finishers of the Wild Pony-Lizard will be entered into a raffle separate from and more lucrative than the riders’ raffles for each individual race and which will feature products from local Utah-based cycling companies.
The Wild Horse features two courses – the full loop and the Little Wild Horse – which wind around and through the Cedar Mountains Wilderness Study Area in Tooele County. Riders roll around the foothills and over low juniper-lined passes, including Hastings Pass where the wagon trails of the Donner Party are still visible. The courses are fast, rolling, and feature a smorgasbord of surfaces, most of them pretty rugged
Originally billed as a mountain bike ride, The Wild Horse is now one of the most beloved gravel rides in Utah. Magerl and Quick Release Racing created a classic ride that anticipated the gravel explosion. For years, riders from across the Wasatch Front flocked to Delle, UT for an early-season round of recreational suffering. Although the ride had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and weather concerns for the past two years, gravel cyclists from Salt Lake City and beyond continued to make the trek to the courses that Magerl laid out.
Kennedy vowed to keep the relaxed atmosphere of The Wild Horse intact, “We want to keep the experience familiar in all the good ways, like raffling off prizes instead of winning big pots, but also we want to grow the ride so that people from all over the West can come out and experience the brain-liquefying beauty of the West Desert.”
The Wild Horse will take place on April 30, 2022 at Delle, UT. Registration opens on February 1, 2022 at 6pm MST. Check http://www.ridewildhorse.com for details.
