French Toast

As the Regional Brevet Administrator, or RBA, Susan Plonsky has the job of running the show. After the brevets are planned out, she makes sure, through her various contacts, that our brevet cards we carry with us--and so carefully guard--make it to Paris, France.

Susan rides the brevets solo the week before. That way she can be the offical for our brevets. It takes a lot of courage to do this--ride hundreds of miles on your own through the desert. Since I had the week off before the new job, and wanted to do a few training rides, Susan asked me to ride with her through more of the remote parts of the 400 Km course.

All I can say is that the head winds were relentless--a storm front was moving into Tucson. I met her at Ajo Way and Kinney at the McD's and soon I realized we were on the "Shoot Out" course that the pros and hard core dude's train on. The road sucked, and the head wind was brutal. Just for a break we stopped for a photo op at Mission San Xavier, and took the picture below.



I carried my new handle bar bag, which seemed to work well. Mostly I stashed my camera in there and it took up most of the room. I need a new camera I guess, because I know you all don't want to read, you want to see the pictures!

Head winds were tough, and I was getting beat down. Susan road strong and I had to stay on her wheel and get pulled along.

Very tough was the head wind from Green Valley to Amado Jct. That's on the Frontage Rd of I-19. And the ride to Arivaca, which is a great 22 miles through wilderness and cattle ranches--very difficult indeed.

Only on 286 through the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge did we get a break--for 35 miles we road at 20+ mph with the tailwind, and I recovered and got my strenght back. The sun set and the mountains were beautiful to behold. My lights worked very well and there was little or no traffic all the way to the store in Three Points.

Susan had ridden about 190 miles, and was on her way back to Casa Grande. I road East on Ajo Way back to my car. It was dark and the 10 miles were long and lonely, but I was able to ride pretty fast. At one point I ran over something on the shoulder and it jarred me so hard that my lights came loose, and my back-up light came flying off. I ran out onto the hwy and fetched it. I just remember long strands of plastic bags clinging to the scawny trees next to the shoulder--Sometimes they looked like ghosts with flowing hair and clothes. It was creepy and I was glad when the stop lights at Ajo Way and Kinney came into view.

Allure Libre!