Rather Disappointing
I’ve been dragging my feet on writing this entry. A large piece of me just doesn’t want to write it because it’s about a Tour de Cure and it’s not a good review of one. The other day I wrote of my ride in the New Mexico Tour de Cure and I purposely left out the parts about the event itself. It was just such a disappointment compared to the 6 other tours that I’ve ridden in. Even the Ft Worth, TX Tour de Cure was better than this one and last year it’s the one that I was the least happy with (because I was scared of getting lost and it had the least people of all the rides so I couldn’t always see people in front or behind me).
I took Grandma to this ride because it was in our home state and I would’ve been an ass to not have asked her to come. This was her third Tour de Cure with me, she accompanied me last year to the Colorado Tour de Cure and the Ft Worth, TX Tour de Cure. She had seen what I called my most favorite (CO, they spoiled me and ruined me for every other tour) and my least favorite (Ft Worth, TX because I was scared to death of getting lost).
I had asked Mom and Dad to come and several friends so that I could see what I was doing when I was talking about all my rides. It was rather embarrassing for them to show up to this event. Their minds will be forever tainted. They probably wonder what it is I see in these rides besides the cure for diabetes because the one they saw wasn’t that great.
When Grams and I drove up she asked where the start was, I said I don’t know because I couldn’t find the balloons. Turns out there were no balloons to mark the start/finish. CO doesn’t do balloons because they have their big sign, but CO is special and not everyone is as great as CO, so balloons are the standard in my mind. There were no balloons. We had no clue where the start was.
Even though I had checked in and gotten my number the night before the ride, I had to check in the day of the ride. They marked us off saying we had showed up and gave us a raffle ticket. I have no clue what was being raffled because I wasn’t there when the numbers were called. Not that that’s important.
After check in, I went and did my usual, “hey can you look over my bike?” REI was there and I got to talk to Chris. I see Chris from time to time in the store when I’m looking at new bike parts. He wasn’t particularly impressed with my rear brake set up. I guess the cable was out of whack. I had had to have part of it fixed when I was in CO but what Chris showed me I think was the way the bike came. I can’t remember. I told him I’d bring it in this week and he let me go.
I went an congregated where everyone else was congregated which happened to be the stage where Betsy/Lisa the tour coordinators were giving us last minute information.
Then they told us to line up by the porta potties. We all kindof looked at each other and then towards the porta potties and they had to repeat themselves before they actually got us to move. We lined up there, and then they said “ok you can go”. There was no riling us up or anything. It was kind of strange. There’s usually some kind of hooting and hollering going on at these events.
So we went off, there wasn’t much of a pack of us, and I can’t count when I ride and I’d venture to say that 50 is too high of a number and 20 is too low so we’ll go with 35. (There were probably more riders on the 75 mile route than that, but like I said, I can’t count when I ride). I got dropped from the pack fairly early (on the 4 mile up hill part) and since it was a small group to start out with it was a long while before I got passed and actually had people to ride with. It is for this reason that I like the tour’s in the bigger cities, with lots of people, lots of people on bikes. (I’m getting dangerously close to writing about my ride, so I’m gonna halt here, this is about the tour itself. If you’d like to read about my ride, you may, I’ve already written about it. It was my longest distance yet and it was a good ride.)
The first rest stop was about 22 miles out. This was a bit discomforting. In the past the longest I’ve ever had to go for a rest stop is 12-15 miles. 22 miles was a bit too far. The next following one was 15 miles out from the first one. They were decently stocked. PB&J, water, gatorade, power bars, fruits. Not the best stocked rest stops I’ve ever had (I’d say those were at the Phoenix Tour de Cure) but not the worse (I’d say those were at the Las Vegas Tour de Cure). The NM Tour de Cure was middle of the line.
On the way to the second rest stop I almost missed the turn off. I’m a bit familiar with the Jemez mountains but having never been to the Gilman Tunnels, I didn’t know where to turn. The signs were so dispersed that a couple times I was concerned I had missed my turn (there was really only 2 turns on the whole route but with the curves on the second leg it was easy to think the turn had been missed.) There were a couple people that had missed the signs for the turn and went 10 miles out of the way. I almost missed the sign because the wind was blowing so it was folded over a bit. I don’t like not being able to see signs. There (in my opinion) needs to be signs every 5 miles just to assure us riders that we’re still heading in the right direction (even if it is on a straight away). The Phoenix Tour de Cure had the best marked roads out of 7 tours and they had the nice little arrows on the road to let us know where we were headed and when to turn.
After returning to the 1st rest stop which doubled as the third rest stop I was homeward bound, well, finish line bound. But just as there was no start line, there was no finish line. It was rough going the last 22 miles. It was over 90 degrees (93 I believe) wherever the Albuquerque thermometer is (at the airport on some high pole). The temperature coming off the pavement was well over 100. Most of us that came in had little to no water in our water bottles. There was no yelling and clapping and hooting and hollering and cowbell ringing at the finish line. I came in second to last (it wasn’t a race, but that fact is important). So with my parents and Grams, and friends we brought Eddie back in. My parents said that when they got there at 10 (that’s when the first rider from the 75 mile route came back in) that there was no one at the finish line for him either. And so my crew became the finish line peeps and mom & dad said that occasionally other people would come join them and they said that maybe for every 1 out of 10 riders that went past my crew was there a hoot session for as they went into the main crowd. Mom said it was very disappointing. I wasn’t there but I have to agree with her.
When I got there there was slim pickins for food and tents were mostly tore down. This was disturbing because when we received the final instructions the day before the ride they said “Lunch and entertainment will take place from 11:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Boxed lunches will be available for riders returning after 2:00 p.m.”
Now coming in at 1:30, I expect that there would’ve been slim pickins, but the box lunches should’ve already been there too. My family was there so we went to lunch, but Betsy did offer to go pick it up so that was nice of her.
The coolest thing about this event (beyond all the people I met and will probably ride with in the future) was the Red Rider t-shirt. It is by far the coolest t-shirt I have ever gotten from a Tour de Cure.
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