Hincapie, Blackett's ridge & Bicycle Ranch Group Ride

Tick-tock, tick-tock we await word out of Greenville on how the guys and gals performed.  Above, the hopes of Ohio are pinned to the jerseys of these four, Allison, Maya, Meredith and Lori on the ladies' side of the field.

I joined a group on Thursday for the weekly Blackett's Ridge fitness hike.  Kameron above, set a torrid pace and then at the halfway point, wanted to take a short break so I joined him, which cut in to my finishing time of 59:37.  Kameron is from northern Iraq in the Kurdish region.  He's looking for a wife.  His sister urges him to come back to Iraq but most of the available woman around his age are on the front lines fighting ISIS. He likes it too much in Tucson, buying and flipping houses, to return.

Saguaro cactus with a lot going on.  These guys would be 200+ years old.

I did some scouting for the new route to Bighorn Mountain on Friday and then joined a group ride out of the Bicycle Ranch bike shop on Saturday.  Good group of 25, all but a couple are A and B. 

They roll out together and then things sort themselves out on the road.  We went west on Ina until reaching I-10, went north on a road that parallels 10, then turned right on Twin Peaks and the hammer got dropped.  Twin Peaks is an 11 mile, constant 3-5% climb that upon reaching Tangerine Road, crosses and keeps climbing up Dove Mountain, ending at the Ritz Carlton resort.  I hung in there until just before Tangerine, #12 in the group, formed up with some guys coming up from behind and....

...stopped at the resort for regrouping.  Nice descent to Tangerine where we headed east and eventually back to the shop with 48 miles.  My Garmin shut down so not sure of the avg speed but these guys are the real deal and I'm glad I found a good option for Saturday rides, other than going all the way in to downtown Tucson for the "Shootout" ride.