Bicycling in the Old Pueblo

(just found this in an archive - wish I'd sent it then. In the meantime I've been riding the Pondersa a great deal, have accepted (nay, EMBRACED) tubeless and have yet to ride Golder) So I finally upgraded and have moved Old Blue to the role of hack. I now have a Novarra Pond 29er and I must say: they've come a long way in 25 years.

My issue is this: while Tucson has never been known for the safety of it's streets or the awareness of it's drivers (at least not in any positive light that I can ascertain) the city and county have been working on making the bikelanes more defined and extensive, setting up the 'Urban Loop' etc. Somehow, I'm still not comfy with taking CaeliBug or Zoo or both out on the road - too many stories of hit-and-runs (notably on Silverbell), still WAAAY too many impaired drivers rushing from one chaotic lifestyle choice to another.

For Nerdist

@nerdist had a birthday today. I've never met you, Mr Hardwick, but happy-trip-around-Sol to you and may you enjoy many more. You laid out a challenge, so I'm going to try and pick up the bits from here. See, I've been thinking a lot about what to put in this blog -seems obvious on the face of it, but with Tucson Weekly doing it in print and all the relevant Twitter reports, it seems hard to imagine that my spin would be anything worth, well, re-reading. So I'll try this. The whole of my experience of Tucson. The fact that I have become a real fan of mountain bikes (and my Ponderosa hasn't (really) let me down yet, nor have I broken it irreparably) and am blessed to live so close to so many great rides. That I have gotten so far away from the riding my motorcycle for fun continuum that it is beginning to make me think that Tucson drivers scare me. That I have been without a consistent gaming group for going on a year now with no real hope in sight, even though I have discovered that some gaming opportunities exist in relatively easy reach. That while I have happy memories of good food in Tucson, I have not really partaken of any recently....no, wait: Casa Vicente for our anniversary. That place is fantastic. And as an update, I'm not only no longer working for a solar-panel accessory manufacturer, but I have job-wise moved to the extreme opposite end of that pendular swing: I work at a test site doing engineering validation on heavy mining equipment. How the worm turns indeed. Going to see if I can do updates via Twitter as well, though I don't know the extent to which Blogger is so integrated.