A few weeks in the past, eTrashMike rode the star-studded Tour de Tucson for the third 12 months in a row — and for the third time, he loved the very quick experience, regardless of spending a lot of it utterly frightened. His conclusion: El Tour is getting too huge.
Take a look at the Tour de Tucson — or “El Tour” is it’s colloquially, contra-linguistically recognized — and also you’ll study instantly that it’s BIG.
Measurement is clearly some extent of delight for its organizers: Just about each webpage, each piece of collateral boasts: “almost 10,000 contributors.”
Certainly, it’s a distinguishing and interesting function: In an period when most rides battle for event-sustaining rider numbers, El Tour simply retains rising. (After this 12 months’s occasion, look ahead to these boasts to learn “over 11,000 contributors,” as TdT registration achieved a brand new excessive water mark.)
In 2023, a widely-watched GCN video unfold the phrase about El Tour among the many racing group, additional spurring enlargement of the Platinum division, the particularly speedy slice of riders who get to start out 5 minutes forward of everybody else. (Right here’s a body from the video.)
In biking, dimension begets pace: extra riders typically means extra quick riders; phrase spreads that Tucson is a quick experience — an precise race for individuals who want, in actual fact — and the flywheel spins: Within the final two years the Platinum division has greater than doubled in dimension.
Simply in entrance of me in the beginning I might spy George Hincapie (The Transfer jersey), Brad Wiggins (the monster in pink), plus Chloe Dygert and others.
However such development calls for a robust basis, and that’s the supply of my concern: Tucson isn’t an enormous city; lots of its streets are damaged and potholed; in some unspecified time in the future its police power and volunteer community will stretch past energy.
My level: after driving El Tour three years in a row, I concern it’s getting too huge.
Don’t get me fallacious: the race is a blast, and driving 100 miles in lower than 4 hours is thrilling. However at occasions it’s additionally terrifying.
Even within the Platinum tier (or possibly particularly in that quick group), I seen the fraying edges of the occasion’s group: Within the impartial rollout — the pre-start pedaling you see within the Tour and different elite races, principally gently ridden amid inter-team chit-chat — riders crowded nervously across the lead automotive; the second the automotive pulled away, signaling the official begin, these nerves turned to panic because the tempo exploded. At occasions 4 lanes narrowed to 3, after which two; toppled cones littered our path, branches hung low over the shoulder, additional narrowing the route — and at one level we swung proper, heading east, instantly into the solar, and we had been drafting largely by sound and really feel — at 30 mph.
1000’s of riders gathered behind our “Platinum” group.
I heard a number of crashes round me, however pressed on, till two riders went down possibly 20 blind meters in entrance of me; I braked arduous, and swerved proper, and bumped a curb, and by the point I might proper myself and return to hurry, the lead group was 50 meters up the street — aka a light-weight 12 months once you’re a solo rider chasing a pack of 100, led by a few of a number of elite professionals.
I reeled in a number of different stragglers, and we had been swallowed by a bigger group, and shortly I used to be driving with a various tranche of 80 or so — various as a result of the group was comprised of elite riders who had tumbled, or had been detained by crashes, plus dozens who merely hadn’t been in a position to sustain. Over the century’s few mild climbs, and thru the day’s brisk crosswinds, this group struggled to take care of something like momentum: We had been fractured, and frenetic, and I used to be annoyed. I rode in the direction of the entrance, encouraging cooperation, hoping to attract in additional riders shelled from the entrance group, and nonetheless to crack 4 hours, however removed from a decent paceline, our group was a hive of shifting, frenetic, short-lived efforts.
Exasperated, about sixty miles in a few my chase-mates and I shifted our technique from cooperation to self-concern, and swung our lead from the windward aspect of the street to the downwind edge, shrinking our lee and basically punishing anybody who wouldn’t experience in the direction of the entrance — placing them within the gutter, in racing parlance. The transfer had its desired impact, as after a couple of minutes of driving the street’s edge I seemed again and noticed that our group of roughly eighty was now simply eight; our drastically diminished crew would experience collectively to the end, accumulating spent riders as we pushed on.
After I took time to go searching, the views had been beautiful.
Even in a smaller group like ours, El Tour’s final 10 miles, a straight, downwind assault on downtown Tucson alongside fissured roads and thru intersections the place cops held visitors, had been once more terrifying; each pink gentle we barreled in the direction of appeared suspect, with vehicles threatening to edge into our path, however these officers’ half-hearted arm-waves. I dodged potholes, in addition to the rear wheel of a fellow rider who, exhausted, veered in entrance of me, attempting to gather the draft of a automotive passing within the parallel lane. Once we blew via the ultimate, closed metropolis blocks and I spied the end line and the race clock, I used to be extra relieved to have survived than dissatisfied to have missed the four-hour mark.*
So: bitter grapes? Certain: with a smaller area, I’d have been much less more likely to get caught behind a crash, the echoes in my head of Phil Liggett tut-tutting my not being on the entrance however; I’d hoped to experience at the very least to the primary hill with the likes of George Hincapie and Bobby Julich (Brad Wiggins having been dropped early). However past my egocentric aspirations, the Tour de Tucson feels on the verge of gaining a fame not for quantity and pace, however peril, after which that flywheel might reverse course: This 12 months WorldTour professionals Quinn Simmons and Tucson native Matthew Riccitello, each of whom I’d seen close to the entrance in 2023 and 2024, respectively soft-pedaled, avoiding threat — and in Riccitello’s case, determined to not experience in any respect.
So to the Tour de Tucson organizers, I say: pump your brakes on the expansion. Cap total participation, and beef up the necessities on the Platinum stage. Nudge registration charges as much as do proper by your benefiting non-profits. And…begin quarter-hour later, so by the point your feverishly-paced Platinum group turns east, the solar isn’t at eye stage.
Your experience/race is regarded for dimension and pace, however should you don’t gradual your roll, TdT, you’ll be higher recognized for hazard and dysfunction.
In any case, generally, larger isn’t higher.
*El Tour is definitely 102 miles; our time of 4:03 put us slightly below 4 hours for a century.