Crew

Colossal Cave doesn’t open its gates until 9am, even in the summer. So I had a leisurely wakeup of 6:10am, set to head out around 6:30. Of course the leisure continued and I didn’t get out the door until 6:45 or so. I figured I’d be late, but I hate being rushed when bike commuting.

I use “commuting” in a loose sense, since I was on my mountain bike, and was going to ride the new AZT to get there. As I hopped onto Broadway I was quickly passed by a group of green roadies. Ah ha, a free ride. It was Cindy and her Desert Foxes. They kept a nice pace until one of their members fell off on some of the hills. I talked for a while with one guy who said he used to put on a mountain bike race series in Tucson in the late 80’s.

The speedup courtesy of the Foxes was just what I needed to get me back on track. I kept a moderate clip along Old Spanish Trail through to the Rincon Valley. Two roadies passed me near the market, riding two abreast. A white suburban was driving over the speed limit, and was forced to, gasp, use the brakes because there was car coming in the other lane. Apparently this perturbed the “soccer mom” type driver of the Suburban. They were not blocking traffic–they were both on the shoulder. Though she was obviously YADIH (yet another driver in a hurry) she slowed down, blocking traffic herself, so she could decide whether or not she wanted to confront the middle aged cyclists. I don’t know if she was afraid to, or what, but she just hovered there in front of them. Then she finally said a few things before realizing she had driven past her turn. She ripped a fast U-turn, almost hitting me in the process, then turned off.

I soon turned off Old Spanish Trail, thankfully, to connect with the AZT off Camino Doretea. It was nice to get on the dirt and even nicer to climb this beautiful trail.

I rode around into Colossal Cave mtn park, descending this newly built section for the first time. Lee and I climbed/hiked it on our AZT thru-ride. It’s in much better shape now, though it needs more work yet.

If nothing else came from all my afternoons meeting Mark, Steve, Bernie, etc out for trail flagging, I at least made the contribution of keeping this trail high, longer, and dropping into the picnic area. I’ll always have a smile of satisfaction when I ride this trail knowing that it would have descended to the dirt road a half mile earlier had I not been involved.

We had a decent crew leader training session. It’s something that is hard to teach (I know I have a lot to learn), and Bernie did a good job. After the tasty lunches, Mark, Bernie, Wil and I walked the trail again to plan for the first work event — October 2nd — see http://www.aztrail-build.org to sign up! I won’t be there (I am either heading north, or south for a trip) but it should be a good time. There will be some good projects to burn some calories on.

Staying late meant I missed any rides back into town. This was bad because I already started late, rode for 2.5 hours, then walked and stood around in the sun for most of the day. The ride back on Broadway was an absolute SCORCHER. I haven’t been so torched in a while. The headwind was particularly insulting — when it’s ~100 degrees it’s like having a blow dryer in your face. Ok, I’ve whined enough. It’s about time for summer to end, though.