You ride the same route enough times and you start to get a little bored. It was for this reason that when discussing this weeks Sunday morning ride with Dan we decided to change it up a bit. We were to meet at my house at 6 o'clock. Take Catalina Hwy south to Tanque Verde, west to Sabino Canyon Rd. and head north.
In route to my house, while driving up Houghton, Dan got stuck behind some old guy doing 30mph (been there, done that). When that happens, there is nothing you can do but ride it out. As a result, it was about 6:15a bfore Dan got to my place and about 6:20a when we got on the road.
The weather was great, the traffic was light, and we were setting a decent pace. Having a great ride, until... about a mile up Sabino Canyon Rd. Dan's rear tire blew. Damn it. That sucks. But, in reality, this is the first riding flat we have had in a long time. When Dan first started riding with Chris and I, he had a rash of flats that would shake the confidence of anyone new to cycling. But since then, flats seem to have been extremely few and far between (fwiw, I am knocking on wood as I write this). So, since it's been such a long time since our last flat, it's really hard to complain about this one.
Less than ten minutes to replace the tube, and we were ready to get back on the road. With the tube replaced and Dan putting his rear wheel back in place, these two women ride by us.
Hey, they were cute. (I think). Sometimes it's hard to tell with the helmets and the sunglasses and all, but, I think they were cute. By the way, there were a number of other cyclists which passed us while Dan changed his tire, but most of them were male and frankly not worth mentioning.
The two cute cyclists, as I will call them here, turned west onto Cloud Rd. I have never ridden down that way so I don't know what is down there, but that was not be the time to find out. Dan and I kept straight through the Cloud light and again through the light at River Rd. We bared slightly right to stay on Sabino Canyon and climb Sabino Mountain.
Sabino Mountain is a deceptively long hill which kind of winds upward and seems to conceal the fact that it continues to incline around each bend. It had been so long since we had ridden out this way, that I had forgotten just how long that climb was. As I continued up the hill, my quads started burning. OMG, it was like my legs were on fire. I was trying to push myself and I could heard Dan right behind me.
At some point, graciously, we reached the top of the hill and came to the light at the Snyder intersection shortly there after. We decided to continue up Sabino Canyon to the end. We reached the end of Sabino Canyon right around 52 minutes into our ride. I told Dan that I wanted to head home so that we could try and get back by eight. My Dad's birthday was last week and we had a family belated birthday brunch planned.
So we made our way back down Sabino Canyon Rd. and headed for home. Going through the light at Snyder, we picked up a guy on a mountain bike who drafted off of Dan all the way to the Kolb light. Upon arrival he told Dan, "sorry, I just couldn't resist the free ride".
Usually, the most difficult part of this route is making the turn eastbound onto Tanque Verde from Sabino Canyon. Three lanes turning, lots of cars, a cyclist nightmare (at least this cyclist anyway). But, it was early enough today that traffic was still really light, not many people out and the turn was no problem.
Similarly, the rest of the ride was pleasant. Especially the last 1.2 miles which is a slight incline up Catalina Hwy to my street. We tried to finish the ride strong and go hard that last mile. Every time I looked down at my Garmin, we were maintaining a speed of 16.5 mph. That is a very good pace for us.
As desired, we made it home before eight o'clock. A quick shower, throw on some decent clothes and a car ride across town later, we arrived at the
JW Marriott Starr Pass for our birthday breakfast brunch. But, this was not the most interesting thing that happend to me today. More interesting is when we came down Tanque Verde at about 10:30am, trying to get home. The TV overpass was blocked off from Tanque Verde and the Wrightsown onramp as well. We weren't real sure what was going on, but had to go down Wrigthstown to Harrison and up to Speedway and finally to Houghton, like everybody else, to get around. Once there we saw more barriers at Tanque Verde and Houghton. What a huge mess. It wasn't until we got home, via the long detour, that we found out about the
crazy guy and his cross town shooting spree. Weird, this kind of stuff never happens in my neighborhood.
All I can say is, I'm glad we rode early. I told Dan, we ride much later, and we might have been caught up in a high speed chase. Scary stuff!
