Suicidal Tendencies is the black-grade descent in the Santa Clara reserve, four miles of slickrock and rocky singletrack that drops off the upper Barrel Roll terrace toward the Santa Clara River bottom. The name predates current sensitivities about it; locals still use it and the trail signage still carries it. The riding is technical, exposed in places, and stacks well as the descent leg of a Santa Clara loop.
What the rock asks for
Suicidal Tendencies is a slickrock-meets-rock-garden descent. The named features include a series of slabby roll-ins about a mile in and a rocky chute near the lower end where the line goes through a tight pinch between two boulders. None of the features are double-black; all of them ask for a rider who has cleaned Bear Claw Poppy and Zen first. Walking individual moves loses no honor; the trail rewards good judgment about which features to commit to.
The True Grit Epic connection
The True Grit Epic spring stage race runs portions of the Santa Clara network including Suicidal Tendencies, Zen, and Bear Claw Poppy, and the trail features in race recap photography every March. Race day brings out-of-state riders who scout the line a week before; non-race-day riders sometimes run into the recon traffic.
The standard Santa Clara loop
The classic Santa Clara network day runs Barrel Roll up, Zen across, Suicidal Tendencies down, and the connector trail back to Cottonwood Drive — about 12 miles with one black descent stacked at the right point in the day. Strong riders extend by adding Paradise Rim and Bone Shaker. Most groups finish at Red Rock Bicycle's downtown St. George shop or one of the south-end coffee stops.
Where Suicidal Tendencies sits in the 435
Santa Clara has the densest interconnected network of in-town trails in Washington County — Barrel Roll, Zen, Suicidal Tendencies, Paradise Rim, Bone Shaker — and Suicidal Tendencies is the technical anchor of that network. It is the trail riders graduate to once Bear Claw Poppy stops surprising them, and it is the trail most full-day Santa Clara loops are built around.