From the Frying Pan into the Fire & Thursday Report

"She Who Must Be Obeyed" asked what I thought about visiting Oro Valley for a few days.  If you've been married for any significant period of time, this is not a question, simply a demand worded oddly.  So, today arrived in the midst of an excessive heat warning but with humidity at 9%, not too bad.  Tomorrow morning at 6:00am I'll roll out with the Bicycle Ranch group ride where it will be 78 and should be off the streets before it hits 100.  Meantime, Rick Miller sent me the below ride report. Sounds like I missed a good ride.

We had around 65-70 riders but I didn't get an exact head count while10-15 in the A group. Pete Cerwinski led them out.


John Bodell led out the C's which had some B riders in the group with fear of a storm looming in the sky. Andrew C
They had at least 10. I led out the B group, which was at least 46 if not 50 strong.

I was going to split us in the parking lot, but decided we would roll together and could split on the road. I thought about splitting us around 310, but the monster was riding smooth two abreast and nothing crazy was happening, so I decided Beechwood would be the self select of two groups on the road. I was concerned that that there could
be some dodgy riding heading up the climb. Most of the faster riders had positioned them selves to the front prior to the left turn(including myself) onto Beechwood. I only had to remind riders once, maybe twice of being too far left. Once at the top we kept on moving with our group(around 26).

We rolled out burg to dry creek, then a quick left right to start another climb on Chatham. It was a good pace but nothing major, had a couple stragglers but we regrouped at the stop sign. Headed down towards 657(I took this moment to add some nutrients to keep me energized for the rest of the ride). At the back I conversed with Kyle Zander about doing the 58 mile loop, he agreed we should do it. So at the stop everyone was coerced into riding the 58 mile loop.(except David Smith) Up Preston we went there was chatter about Reynolds and which way we were heading and are we going up the steep side. I assured them that we would be heading up the longer side heading back west. We made it to Reynolds with no issues, in our group we had Craig Rice(SR muscle dude)john day (JR muscle dude)
Gus/Peggy Cook several others that I got names of, who I haven't really met before. We were blessed with having the precarious riding of John Sada,  there was a push at the bottom corner where Wince intersects Reynolds, I set back and watched it unfold. Good steady climbing by the group. We regrouped at 657 and headed to Dutch Lane.

At this point we had avoided all rain, just some wet roads. We made our way to liberty church and down to London St. Made the right onto stone quarry. The skies were blackening up to our west northwest, there was chatter of tornados and thunder storms, the wind started to pick up as well. We headed west, the pace quickened(because of the looming conditions) we dropped a few riders, but by the time we got to Northridge, the skies had cleared and we
were spared.

Very good ride!
I believe our avg was 19.8