El Tour de Tucson

On a previous trip to Tucson, my friend Curtis Gunn introduced me to Richard DeBernardis, the man behind El Tour de Tucson. Listen to the interview here.

Richard’s story is so compelling, there would be no way I wouldn’t do the 111-mile ride across Tucson. As the months flew by I found a companion, Dan Murphy, to join me. Dan’s a UA grad and both daughters are Wildcats, too. The first thing Dan did Sunday morning before we departed, “I want to get a paper.”

We’re hours out of town before Dan sees that Curtis finished 1st in the 60-mile ride which gives him a trophy case full of finishes; in 2005 he finished 1st in the 109-mile ride and he’s also won the 85-mile ride.

Neither Dan or I had ever ridden such a distance, but we did train for the Tour. We turned the OC Gran Fondo into a 90-mile training ride and several times in the past month we’d ride all across Orange County through Santiago Canyon, just to build up endurance. It paid off. Did I have big ambitions for this first Century? Yes, to finish. Personally, I could relate to Debby Price, quoted in the Arizona Star, “My goals were to not fall down and cry, and I met both of those.”