Yesterday was one of those “can’t miss” days for bicycling in Tucson. Not just for the warm, sunny weather, but for two wonderful events.
The morning started with a Tucson classic, the Bike Swap Meet, which has been around since the 1980s. Matter of fact, I can remember attending the spring 1988 edition, which was held during a monthly bicycle club meeting in the Biological Sciences West auditorium on the University of Arizona campus.
Let’s just put it this way — this event has gotten wa-a-a-ay too big for an auditorium…
If you were looking to buy or sell anything bicycle-related, well, you were in good company. Plenty of it…
One of my favorite things about the Bike Swap Meet is, well, the artsy-ness of it all. It’s not just the beauty of the vintage bikes like these classic Schwinn Stingrays…
…there’s the elegance and simplicity of the bicycle wheel…
Okay, enough artsy-ness. Let’s go to the races!
Downtown Tucson was the place to be if you like a good, fast criterium bike race. Yesterday’s Old Pueblo Gran Prix was the first-ever, but I believe it’s destined to be a classic…
The Old Pueblo Gran Prix course was only six-tenths of a mile long, which meant that you didn’t have long to wait before the racers went speeding by…
I’d like to offer a special shout-out to the men and women in blue who protected the riders from those who wished to walk, bike, or drive across the course…
To some, the cops came across as real hardnoses, but I speak from personal experience when I say that you don’t want anyone but racers on a criterium course. Back when I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I was a volunteer course marshal for a criterium that went around the University of Michigan campus.
Things were going just great until some out of state visitors drove right onto the course. It took a lot of screaming and pleading to get them to move out of the way of the riders. Fortunately, they drove off without incident.
Want to see more bike-tography? Pedal your browser over to my Bicycle Stock Images site.