Commuting Chronicles 3

Commuting and Riding in Tucson

(Originally posted to tal-rides on July 25, 2007)

This past week we (wife Kathy and I) were in Tucson visiting daughter Laurel's family: hubby Mike, daughter Daphne, and another girl WELL on the way. (They all say "hi" to you who know them.) They live in the old barrio just south of downtown. Mike bought 1/2 block there when they were practically giving it away as urban renewal and built some adobe residences where they now call home. The area is well on the way to gentrification, meaning good cafes, pubs, and bistros within walking distance, but retains a lot of the barrio flavor. It's a very interesting area to visit.

Commuting

Mike has a business (Geosystems Analysis, Inc) located about 5 miles away, and he commutes by bike. I rode with him a couple of times. He hops on the Santa Cruz River Bikeway a few blocks from home, rides north along the river all the way to his offices, where he can exit the bikeway, cross a parking lot, and he's there. The only streets he has to share with motorized vehicles are the 3-4 blocks from home to the bikeway. It is as if our St Marks trail took you from, say, a residence in Midtown to a business near the airport, something like that.

On both of these trips, I saw a lot of wildlife, including each time a Road Runner. I even passed the RR once. This has to be harder than passing a Harley, right?

This is an unbelievable commute. Mike sometimes takes Daphne to school, too, which means a few more blocks on city streets. School was out so I didn't get to lurk along on that part, but I did ride those streets and they are quite calm. Daphne rides in a seat he mounts on the rear rack of the bike, or sometimes in a Burley trailer.

Laurel works out of home and bike commutes to the YMCA (workouts, including swimming) and some shopping. She also takes Daphne to the Y for a swim, by bike.

The Guest Bike

They now have a guest bike in my size. I have had one for a while that Mike rides when in TLH, so they knew that a spare bike for him would also work for me. (xcpt the gears - I mentioned something about liking low gears for the hills, they said "oh, it has very low gears, all you should need" - 39x23 was the lowest. Oh well. I'll treat the guest bike to a compact crank on the next trip.)
But what a luxury to have a guest bike when you visit. I recommend this practice to everyone. It's a great excuse to get yourself another bike and keep the current one for guests. It's great for you, great for guests, great for the bike shop, all around greatness. Be a good host: buy more bikes!

Other Rides

There are some excellent rides from downtown Tucson. Even leaving from city center, it is not hard at all to get out quickly. (I can't figure out how this is so. Tucson is considerably larger in population than TLH, but it seems much more comfortable to get to good riding from downtown.)
My favorite is the loop that goes through Tucson Mountain Park and Old Tucson and returns by climbing Gates Pass (about like Wolf Pen Gap, only desert). [That was REAL fun on the 39x23.] The main loop is about 30 miles, plus 10 if you add the extension through Saguaro National Park and the Arizona Desert Museum. Quiet roads, interesting hilly terrain, and amazing desert scenery. You can make a day of it by stopping at the Desert Museum. (Do the all day trip in spring, fall, or winter.)
Summer riding starts early in AZ. They don't do daylight savings time, so it is light at 5:00am, and of course HOT by 10:00am. Best rides are 5:00 - 8:00am. But that works for us - just stay on Tallahassee time, and the ride is 8:00am - 11:00am, as far as your sleep cycle can tell.

Cisterns

Laurel just had two cisterns installed that catch the roof runoff for use as water for the yard and possibly an outdoor shower. This makes a lot of sense in AZ, which is coming out of its unusually wet last few decades. At first I didn't get it. Water is water. But the point (she says) is that watering plants using municipal water means using ground water (i.e., well water from the aquifer) for a surface water job. The ground water that goes down the sewer is recycled by pumping back to the aquifer after treatment, but if you pour it on the ground it is essentially transferred to the surface system. Rainwater on the other hand is surface water, so pouring it on the ground is keeping it in the same system. I think I got this right.

[Laurel's comment, added: Well, not quite. The main point of harvesting rain water is to prevent its loss through evaporation (and mosquito breeding), which is the fate of much storm runoff in Tucson. This leads to the secondary purpose which is to minimize the mining (and associated costs) of the underground water on which we depend for basic living. The third perk is that plants love rain – not chlorinated, comparatively salty groundwater.

Uncaptured stormwater runs off into the Santa Cruz Riverbed (as you witnessed) or other washes where it then either infiltrates into the groundwater system or evaporates. Infiltration is the only way that our aquifer gets replenished, but by capturing potentially evaporated water, we effectively create a new source.]

Visiting Christine & Marty

An old friend of Laurel's is back in Tucson as President of Genuine Innovations, makers of various CO2 inflation systems. I met Marty several years ago, back when he was supporting his competitive cycling doing the product rep thing. Now settled, he and wife Christine remain gifted and dedicated athletes, on top of their bigger life responsibilities.

We all went to their home and met the 3 boys, the youngest being less than a week old. The middle boy is Daphne's age, and they take swim class together. It was a nice visit, their boys are boys, fer sure. Looks like they'll have a pro golfer, an NFL linebacker, and maybe a cyclist, although the 5-day-old is a little young to evaluate. I was duly impressed with the new one, of course, of course.

I was also impressed with the bike shop Marty has set up, taking the space where a more typical AZ family would keep the second car. They have about 7 bikes, down from 17 they brought in when they moved from California to Genuine Innovations. The shop has good working space, pro-level tools, and the top-line Park work stand, the one with the massive metal plate base. Marty has mounted this onto a low wooden frame on low-profile castors, so he can easily move the stand to the center of the shop for work but roll it out of the way otherwise. Good idea, and it works. The shop is also well organized, neat, and clean, so projects start right up.

Marty commutes every day from his home to work at the GI HQ near the Tucson airport - a good 7-8 miles on city roads. His commuter is a Surly Cross Check with 700-32 tires. We agreed that having off-road-capable tires on a commuter is an under-rated safety feature, allowing you to concentrate on traffic, not so much on minor road hazards, and also escape more easily. Cyclocross bikes are excellent for commuting.

Wile E Biker Recommends

If you get a chance, visit Tucson and do some biking. Even pretending to commute is fun. And where else can you ride a good gap and see a road runner the same day?