I did this ride with my cycling friend Curt and the cycling club out of the SaddleBrooke community north of Tucson, where he has his winter home. The weather in Colorado in March and April is grim so any opportunity to go somewhere warm and dry this time of year should not be missed. Indeed, they had 3 feet of snow in Monument while I was cycling in Arizona and it's even snowing now as I work on this web site. There were 35 of us or so, the weather was hard to beat, especially by Colorado standards, and it was a terrific group of people.
According to my Cat Eye cyclocomputer I rode 333 miles and climbed 12,180 feet. Generally the temperature was in the 70s & 80s except on the last day toward the end of the 75 mile ride from Rio Vista back to Quail Creek/Green Valley when, according to my Cat Eye, it hit 104 degrees as we got to the lowest elevation of the ride.
Southern Arizona is pretty serious desert. There are few plants larger than small bushes as it's extremely dry, so the mountains are pretty bare even though the elevation is fairly high. It's a pretty stark landscape. In the spring, though, the bicycling weather is quite nice. The area probably appeals to me mostly because I'm a fan of westerns and Arizona is the setting of many, many westerns.
The SaddleBrooke community north of Tucson.
The Route; 5 nights in the circled towns and 6 days of riding starting and finishing in Green Valley.
The SaddleBrooke Cycling Club at the start of the ride.
Hydrating with Bob & Curt in Rio Rico.
Curt, Karen, & Martie in Sonoita; Karen just returned from an iron-man/woman competition in New Zealand.
On the open road; riding behind Ed east of Sonoita.
Wine country east of Sonoita.
At the OK Corral. Somehow my biking duds don't fit into the scene very well.
On Boot Hill. The losers to Wyatt, Virgil, & Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday in the gunfight at the OK Corral.
Bob & Curt with one of the famous tombstones.
Wide open prairie. Instead of taking the short direct route from Tombstone to Bisbee I rode out on a 60 mile loop east to McNeal, down US-191 a way, and then back toward Bisbee. This was taken from beside US-191. This is a long way from anywhere.
Looking down while fighting the wind on US-191.
Saloon in the middle of nowhere. As I was riding back toward Bisbee I began to feel terrible and, about then, I came over a rise and there was the Howlin' Coyote Saloon in the middle of this emptiness. So I stopped for lots of ice water and a brew. I wasn't feeling any better and so got a ride into Bisbee with the owner, who was going in to run errands. It turned out that I was coming down with the flu. It lasted several days but was worst that night. I was able to finish the bike ride.
With Curt in front of the B & B in Bisbee.
Where Tom Mix died and is buried. He was a silent movie era star of westerns and was a pallbearer at Wyatt Earp's funeral in LA in 1929. This is up the road from SaddleBrooke.
Curt and his girlfriend Cass in SaddleBrooke.
Monument Valley in northern Arizona - the scene of many John Ford westerns - on the drive back to Colorado.
Sand storm near Albuquerque. On the drive to Tucson down I-25 I was driving in a pretty much continuous sand storm from Santa Fe to south of Socorro, New Mexico. This is a cell phone pic taken on the south side of Albuquerque.
