Tour De Tucson

Mad Duck had been given care of the Drop-U and all that was left to me was to board the plane and head to Tucson. The trip did not get off to the best of starts. On the way to the airport, I realized that my safety ticket home had been left and I was forced to make a giant U-Turn at the airport to go back and get it. Fortunately, I live three minutes from the airport so it wasn’t that big of deal. This followed up with two delays out of DFW. The other Team In Training folks got there after I did, so we gathered round a table of fake silverware for some lunch. We finally got to board the plane bound for the desert.

I had been looking forward to this trip for a while. Starting a new job this year, I had zero vacation days and this was one of the ways around that. Since I was headed to Tucson to represent the group, I was given the pass from the office on Thursday and Friday. VPN didn’t let me totally unplug from the office, but it was enough for a great break. We generally goofed off on Friday. We had a nice little ride for an hour and then cruised around Tucson to take in some sights. Who knew they had a total Wig-O-Rama?

They may not have a Duck Blind, but that’s because they only have Ordinary Bike Shops in Tucson.

Fortunately, for cyclists, the city is VERY cycling friendly.


The ride actually occurred on Saturday. We were scheduled to roll off of the start line at 7:00 am. The cool thing was that none other than Floyd Landis himself was the one to start the race. He was there in his yellow jersey to begin the festivities. I’m not sure if he had testosterone with him or not. The 109 mile race had over 4,000 people on the start line. I did not get to the line early enough, and ended up starting somewhere in the back of the middle of the mess. It took about four minutes for the crowd to part enough to where I could actually move the wheels forward. We took off to the South end of Tucson towards the airport in a giant peleton.

As we rolled South, I was able to move through the pack towards the front. I was not there to win a race, but I also didn’t want to average 15 miles per hour either. Mile eight was the first place where I knew this was going to be a long day. That was the first of TWO dry creek bed crossing where we were required to get off and hike the bike across. The crossing was probably rideable, but it wasn’t worth the risk of a flat. As I came up the slope on the other side, there were mariachis playing which made me smile. I left the crossing in the middle of a huge pack drafting nicely doing as little work as possible and keeping a nice average speed up. As we approached the airport, I noticed that I was at the front of the pace line. Screw this, I bridged to the next group and latched on. This became a recurring theme for the next fifteen or so miles while we were headed to the East.


At some point, I found another Titus rider.

He was very kind and pulled me along for several miles. We talked about how nice the bikes rode and how you could actually meet the people that welded our bikes since they were made before the outsourcing started. As we approached mile 30, I could see the mountains off in the distance and settled into a nice rhythm.

This rhythm was shocked at mile 32. I came screaming around a corner only to be greeted by cheers that included my name. I had forgotten that the North Texas Team In Training folks were scheduled to be there. It definitely made me perk up. I continued to roll on and feel pretty good. I was ahead of schedule at this point and was pretty confident in the pace I was maintaining. Little did I know what I had in front of me at that point.




The tour headed North, which was directly towards the mountains. This led us to the foothills of the Chisos mountains. This “flat” century was no longer flat. We began the process of rolling up and down. Packs and pace lines were harder and harder to come by which meant I was exposed and doing more work than I wanted to at this point in the ride. Then we hit mile 50, which was the second dry creek bed crossing.

This one hurt me a lot. It was longer than I expected and it took its toll on me. I paused when I got to the other side and refilled my bottles and grabbed some orange slices. I dumped the sand out of my shoes and took off still rolling through the foothills which seemed to be endless. The ride’s elevation profile was very deceiving.

I talked to all kinds of people while rolling along. I met a lady from San Antonio, a couple on a tandem from San Diego, a couple from Tucson, and many others. The ride attracted people from all over and I got a nice little slice struggling up and down the hills. When I hit mile 70, I had a cramp. I always fight cramps and it made me mad. A nice lady talked to me while I massaged it out and was able to continue on. Fortunately, this was the only cramp of the day. But it was a prelude of what was to come.

I was on schedule at mile 85 to finish the 109 miles in the desired goal of less than six hours. Ahead of it actually, which made me smile. However, that’s when the body started to say it wasn’t very happy. I was in the middle of a pace line headed down hill at 30+ miles per hour and I wasn’t feeling good, which is a very odd thing for me. I knew trouble was brewing and that there was nothing I could do about it. The ride turned south to head back towards town and into a head wind. This hurt me bad. I got separated and was doing all the work by myself by mile 90 and my heart rate would not come down. I was now looking at no more than 12 miles per hour on the computer and the heart rate was reading 165+ which is not a good thing. I stopped at mile 92 to take a picture. I had promised Jacqueline a picture of a giant cactus and saw a big one. It seemed appropriate at the time.


Miles 92 to 97 are somewhat of a haze to me now. I know I stopped at two rest stops and it took me an hour to go the ten miles leading up to 97. At the two rest stops, the on site paramedics were concerned about me. Little did they know that they had a heart patient in front of them with a pace maker. I made sure they didn’t know until I was ready to leave. The folks at all the stops were incredibly nice. At the second rest stop, I ate some Oreos. I’m not real sure what gave, but my heart rate finally came down and I thought I had to go or I was done. I headed back out on the road headed towards downtown Tucson. The on-site paramedic at the stop was sure to let me know that there was an ambulance a half mile down the road. I was not going to use it.

Once back out on the road, I was feeling a lot better. I started to pick up the pace and was back in business. Along came three University of Arizona students that were so kind to allow me to hook on to the back of their line. My heart rate was staying down in the range I needed it to and the speed was back up around 20 mph. It was then I decided that no matter how fast or slow they went, as long as the heart rate was good, I was going with them. They ended up dragging me back in to Tucson. With their help, we passed a lot of people and picked up several along the way. As we approached downtown, I looked around and realized I was in a peleton again. The cops had all the traffic shut down and we were rolling in style. We cruised back into downtown in the most cool of ways.

I made the final right hand turn and headed to the finish line. My computer read 110.2 miles plus the half mile walk for the hike a bike section. Six hours and sixteen minutes after starting, I was done. I was whipped, but knew that it was good to be done. I will never forget the look on the faces of all of the Leukemia Society folks who were there to support us. I didn’t make the goal that I had set for myself, but I realized that the bigger picture of the statement made for the Leukemia Society was much bigger than any time goal that I set out for myself. To top it all off, I was given an award by Medtronic, the company that makes my pacemaker, called The Return To Life award. It was given to a pace maker patient who completed the century ride. It put a little more perspective on the ride and what was accomplished. I don’t know if I will go back to Tucson to do this event again, but it was definitely one of the more rewarding things I’ve ever done in life because of what it meant to people that I’ve never met or will meet. That was way more important.