Here we go! It’s the first day of the Tour de Bisbee. Today we rode 55 miles from central Tucson southeast to Sonoita. We climbed over three thousand vertical feet and completed the ride in 7 hours with 5.5 hours in the saddle.

We rolled out of Tucson about 10am and rode down Broadway to Old Spanish Trail before heading south on Houghton. There was a pretty long section of Houghton where we had no shoulder due to construction. Fortunately the cars were friendly and didn’t force passing us with oncoming traffic. We took a left on Mary Ann Cleveland way to Vail.

We drank a lot of water even though it was cool and cloudy. From southern Tucson to Sonoita is 25 miles of desert. There are a few homes here and there so we stopped at a grocery store in Vail to replenish water and get some snacks in.

We made sure to stop and take breaks every hour or so. The nice part about setting pre determined breaks is that no ones ego gets hurt.

What I mean by this is that for most active people, when asked if they want/need a break tend to say no. This happens for a variety of reasons from not wanting to look weak to not wanting to hold the group back.

By setting a pre determined time that a break will occur it is the clock deciding when to take a break. Everyone is happy and no egos are hurt in the process.

To say the least our butts were tired and a little sore. We trained for this ride in the cold of Colorado. After a few hours of cold weather riding it tends to not be much fun. Today we realized that we could have done a couple of five hours rides and that probably would have helped the seat soreness today. That said it was still a lot of fun and I cannot think of anything else I’d rather be doing with anyone else.

Here is our route on Strava:

Tomorrow we ride about the same distance and get to Bisbee. There will be a big climb at the end but we will get it done.