February 29, 2024
Day 23 - To the Left, To the Left
Editor’s Note: I did not take a single picture today but fortunately the PedalPushin Wife did.
Today we opted to simply stay on the left side of Tucson going as far north as the trails would take us, followed by going as far south as the trails would take us, and not crossing the Santa Cruz wash except on a few bridges.
Heading north, we simply enjoyed the riding as did quite a few other cyclists. Once we got past the Oro Valley turnoff, the number of other riders diminished significantly. We did stop to offer assistance to one couple from Ontario who only had a paper map of the Loop. We spent a few minutes helping them to find themselves on the map and relayed some additional information about the other areas they might ride.
There is a “closed” section of the trail as you head north that has been under construction for quite a bit. As we have ridden through the barricades already and found the trail completely finished except for some landscaping, we went forth today in much the same fashion.
But, the head Civil Engineer for the project was out walking and inspecting and stopped us to explain we weren’t really supposed to be there. “Did you see the barricades?” This was followed by comments about liability and a few other stories and interesting enough other cyclists who had also run the barricades showed up. As he couldn’t really stop us, we cycled on and came across quite a few other cyclists, lots of walkers, and other trail users on the closed section of the trail.
I get what he was saying but I also think he might need to comprehend that cyclists and trail users will use a fully finished trail and perhaps the project needs to rethink where they are in the process.
From there we cycled on to the end of the trail and simply turned around for the southward leg. Didn’t see the engineer again and surprisingly enough the barricades on the north end were completely off the trail with NO signage saying the trail was closed.
The southern run took us as far as Valencia Street and really was just the return run of the way north. There were far less trail users now which was nice and we enjoyed perfect weather conditions.
In total we rode 55 miles today and also enjoyed a lengthy conversation with our granddaughters on the way back to our lodging. It brought back memories of using a cell phone to call our daughters when we were 3 days out of Washington DC on our cross country trip. Times have definitely changed.
We are now down to our remaining few days in Tucson on this winter getaway. We are having to actually think about which rides we want to do as the time is short. Tomorrow we will do the full loop one more time and then have to make decisions about the final few rides.
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9 months ago
9 months ago
Today's ride: 55 miles (89 km)
Total: 1,836 miles (2,955 km)
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