Feats Don't Fail Me Now

Here is my annual Tucson report. Every year my wife and I go to Tucson for the Gem and Mineral Show. This is an event that goes on for weeks and has venues all over the city. It means dressing for business and spending a lot of time either riding on, or waiting for buses. We buy precious and semi-precious stones for our jewelry and tools and supplies for or glass making. I try to squeeze in a little beer consumption and a bike ride or two.
This year I managed to get in a couple of rides. The weather was prefect, not too cold or wet or windy. I rented a bike from Fairwheel Bikes. I have rented from them for the last four years and highly recommend them. They also sell some very very cool high end bike parts. The kind of stuff you don’t tell you wife about but make sure everyone notices.

The first ride this year was with Tucsonbikelawyer.com. He does have a real name and is a real person and believe me he is a LOT taller than he sounds on the phone. His real name is Erik Ryberg. He is a strong advocate for cycling and the go to guy in Tucson if you have a cycling related legal issue. I feel very fortunate that he took a break from his busy schedule to ride with a virtual stranger. He suggested a short casual ride that just happened to go up Sentinel Peak, locally known as “A” Mountain. Trust me, going up was a lot less scary than coming down. A rental bike that is just a little too big and you have only ridden for an hour, does not make for confident descending.

That evening I looked over all of the local rides that were posted (http://www.aliciarides.com/WeeklyRides.html) and found one that looked good. Cactus Cycling Club listed a ride that was B-B+, FF and 25-30 miles. The speed was good,(14-18 avg) FF translates into Fairly Flat, and who really cares about the mileage as long as it doesn’t lead to a divorce. I met them at the park bright and early Saturday morning and discovered there was a slight change of plans. We would be going over Gates Pass and back. It dawned on me that FF might stand for other things than Fairly Flat. Flexible Flyer perhaps? Fractured Fairytale? Flyby Fords? Filleted Flatlander?

The CCC are great people. I would ride with them any day and recommend that you ride with them as well. It’s just, well it might just be me, but Gates Pass didn’t strike me as being particuarly flat. (3100 ft alt.)It wasn’t too bad going east to west, the traffic was a little annoying, but it was doable. The warnings about the steepness and high speed of the descent had me about ready to wet my pants. Did I mention how much fun the rental bike was going downhill? By the time we got down off the pass I was feeling pretty good.

There were a lot of small hills and rollers, the kind of stuff I normally just thrive on. Those of you who don’t cycle should know this one little thing. There is a little lever underneath the brake lever. If you ride a Campagnolo equipped bike this lever gives you a lower gear. If you ride a Shimano equipped bike it gives you a higher gear. I ride Campy, the rental was Shimano and you really are not supposed to shift up into a bigger gear near the top of a hill. There was frequent use of mildly bad language.

I mentioned earlier that I was feeling pretty good about myself after getting off the mountain. The ride from west to east fixed that pretty fast. The wildly fast ride down the west side of the pass translated into a slow, very steep climb back up. There was a point near the top, rumored to be 12% grade (my Garmin showed 14%), where if I could have generated enough forward motion to stop without falling over I might have walked to the top. If you are old enough to have watched “Laugh In” it would have looked like Arte Johnson falling over on his tricycle. When the sweep rider passed me near the top I dug deeper and just powered up and over. I mean, who likes to be passed by a guy with gray hair? (I may have been older than him but I look young. Clean living and all that jazz.)

The ride back in was a blast. I would like to do it on a better bike someday. The pace did pick up a little on the way home but who cares? We were having fun. Things worked out and I joined the CCC for lunch. I have rarely encountered a nicer group to ride with. I look forward to riding with them next year, hopefully on a better bike.They mentioned a nice little ride up Mt. Lemmon for pie. No ride with pie can be all that bad, right?



Oh, I forgot to mention, somebody out there owes me a beer, FF my butt!