Our Own Tour

Alisha says: If you live in Tucson and ride bikes there is a time that starts in September and lasts through mid November where there is an increased number of people out riding and whenever you get stopped at a light with a fellow cyclist the question always comes up "so, you out training for the tour?" The "Tour" they are referring to is El Tour de Tucson and in some people's mind your are not a real cyclist unless you've ridden the tour. While El Tour is a great event, raising a lot of money for over 20 non profit organizations, and bringing thousands of people to boost the economy and enjoy great weather, this year it just wasn't something I was interested in. There are a couple of reasons for this, after finishing a long racing season all I wanted to do for a month or so is to just ride my bike for the pure joy of getting outside and pedaling my bike, with no efforts on tap or certain hours to put in, but to just ride, and the second is that a 111 mile hammer fest with 5,000 of my friends just sounds like way to many people.

Our friends the Toussaints invited us on a cycling/camping trip over the same weekend as the Tour and so it was a great excuse to have something else to do that weekend. We started in Tucson and rode the 85 miles to Lake Patagonia. It was a tough ride, we had a head wind the whole way. Roberta drove our camping gear and met us there. We enjoyed an afternoon of food, playing with the dogs at the lake, and an evening around the campfire with more food. The next day we were very happy that the wind was still blowing the same way resulting in a sweet tail wind the whole way home. Unfortunately, Dave has been battling a cold and decided to skip the ride but still rode out in the car and camped so at least he still got to come along for some of the the fun.