Windy Tucson Commute

East on the River Bike Path, and hey there's like water and junk!

This morning I took my old U of A commute route which is from the Arthur Pack Golf Course on Thornydale down River Rd to the River Bike Path. But as I now work at the Desert Sanitarium, there’s a few more miles to add. Now that River Rd heading East has been re-paved and improved, it offers a very fast rolling commute.

One part of the road which has been improved is the stretch down busy Thornydale to where the morning fucktards battle to get to the freeway. As I now have to drive this stretch when I do drive the car—well, as Will Shakespeare would day, “It sucketh.” More people, more cars—every idiot on a cell. Can’t that shit wait until you’re at the office?

So even though it’s improved, that doesn’t make driving any better. On the bike through this section, it’s a slight descent, so I breeze past—but I have to be very wary of the people trying to make that last dash to cut into the lane to make the freeway entrance.


There was a brutal headwind--but it was not as cold as its been the last few months--last minute I left my jacket in the car--a sign of Spring!

My regular commute will not work as a section of Ina Rd and La Canada is down to one narrow dirt lane either direction. So instead of the 15 mile commute from the YMCA, I’ll do the 18 mile commute from the Golf Course.

Okay so there was like a 20 mph headwind all the way into the San, Gentle Readers of This Blog—and I could only ride 13 mph tops. It was very slow-going. But I was not late to work.
To stay out of morning rush-hour traffic on River Rd, and to try to get out of the wind, I traveled the bike path all the way to work—but it was still a great effort on my part to get up to 13 mph…

About five miles from work at this point on the Bike Path. Its still pretty windy and I'm just gonna make it into the office, get showered and changed before 8 a.m.

A few times during the day, I checked outside to see the wind direction. Almost always--like 99% of the time, I have a pretty good headwind going home. You can really feel it on the bike path in the afternoon, so that's why I take the fast descent from the foothills on Skyline and Ina Rds. But I have to say that the wind was blowing steadily out of the Southeast--this would mean that rare tailwind for the ride home, mes amis!

O! Let me tell you of the tailwind, Gentler Readers of This Blog! Bliss! O! Sweet Bliss! Riding the same speed as the wind--an eerie silence--and riding what appeared to be the same pace as the flowing river. I rode the 18 miles back to my car parked at the golf course in 50 minutes. Dang, but that was pretty gosh dern fast! Why this wind was this way, I do not know--rain was not forecast, no storms up from Old Mexico that I heard of--just a sweet Spring Wind.

O! The Tailwind bringing Spring to the Desert has made my heart light!

(Which made me forget about getting my arse kicked that morning O! Damn you Headwind!)

Allure Libre!