by Maynard Hershon
Frankly, m’dear, I’ve never wanted to ride across America. You may not want to either but like me you love to ride your bike. Think about PAC Tour. Although PAC Tour is owned and run by the king and queen of endurance cycling, Lon Haldeman and Susan Noterangelo, it is not just for mega-mile super-people.
Even old codgers like this writer have big fun. If you’ve ever been jealous of pro training camps, where the racers only eat, sleep and ride, PAC Tour’s your ticket.
My week with PAC Tour was Bike Friday Week, the last of five week-long PAC Tour camps in Arizona this spring. Long before the big week, I got a package from PAC Tour with more information than I ever expected, information about airport transportation, motel rooms, pre-camp training, what clothing to bring, laundry facilities, on and on.
We met on Sunday at a hotel near the Tucson airport. Getting to the hotel from the airport is as easy as the guidebook described. At a meeting at the hotel that afternoon, Lon and Susan made sure you understood how PAC Tour takes care of you.
As the week progressed, we were surprised again and again by how easy other logistical steps turned out to be. It was as if PAC Tour had thought of every-damn-thing. When you got to know Lon and Susan, you saw that it’s true: They HAVE thought of everything.
Monday morning, we rode 85 miles from the airport hotel in Tucson to a motel in Sierra Vista AZ, the hub from which we were to do our day rides. That first day, by the way, was the hardest day on the bike; we took a roundabout route to avoid weekday traffic.
Late in the first day’s ride, we pedaled through Fort Huachuca, over many short but steep hills. Even this writer, a bronze god of cycle-sport, grumbled incoherently as he labored over those hills. (We rode back to Tucson the following Saturday on a more direct route, avoiding those *%%$ hills. I hardly grumbled at all.)
By noon the first day, you’d discovered that some of the riders were a bit faster than you and some were slightly slower. Thankfully some were traveling just about your speed. You discovered that they were pretty cool people; you had a hunch you were gonna have a fun week among your new friends.
It’s difficult to say this without sounding all warm-and-fuzzy. But you did find that your hunch was right-on. The people you met that week, campers and staff, became your friends, friends you wanted to stay in touch with, friends you looked forward to seeing and riding with again. Why is that? Why are PAC Tour friends such good friends?
Your guess is as good as mine. I can’t explain it, but I know it’s true.
On that first ride and subsequent ones, we’d connect with PAC Tour staff three times per day for rest stops or lunch. We’d have breakfast at the hotel. I’d eat, oh, three times what I do at home. If we rode 80 miles, say, we’d stop at 25 miles for liquids and snacks, at 40 for lunch and maybe at 65 for more Gatorade or water and bars or gels.
Lunches were remarkable, by the way, burgers grilled at the roadside or fajitas, salads…good tasty food – and pie or cake for dessert, often with ice cream! Imagine!
You could shed cycling clothing at any of the stops; it’d reappear back at the hotel. FYI, it was the first week of April. I rode in arm-warmers and knee-warmers. I never had to wear long-finger gloves or full-length tights but I did have to use sunscreen.
When we reached the hotel, PAC Tour would have assembled racks for the bikes, filled buckets with soapy water and provided brushes for bike-washing. Floor pumps, lubes and tools appeared. Skilled mechanical help was there for the asking. You could sign up for inexpensive but effective massages, some performed during the evening presentations.
We stayed two to a room in Sierra Vista. Each day, one rider or another would walk up and down the hall collecting several riders’ mesh bags of laundry to wash in the motel’s machines. Others washed shorts and jerseys in the shower and hung them over the fence around the pool. It was Arizona, after all: they dried in no-time.
Each evening, we’d assemble in the motel’s meeting room where we’d be enlightened and entertained by cycling luminaries. Those luminaries would be riding with us, mind you, and they too would become our friends.
Each morning, we’d leave the Sierra Vista hotel and do loops in the desert countryside. We’d leave roughly at the same time, all of us, but we’d split into groups soon after we rolled out. A few of us would opt to ride in the PAC Tour van out to the first rest stop, thus cutting the day’s mileage. One or two people took days off to sightsee or just to rest.
I was ALMOST fast enough to hang with the “fast group,” but not quite. I really liked riding with the guys in that group, but alas… I probably rode harder and faster than I had in years or decades – on that silly looking small-wheel bicycle, God bless its articulated heart. I’m fitter than I’ve been since the Eisenhower administration.
Since my PAC Tour week I’ve heard from several of the people I met there. The bonds we forged – the fast guys who rode away and the slower folks who caught us at the rest stops – seem to me, as I said, to be genuine, lasting bonds.
Perhaps all the PAC Tour weeks have the same effect on people. I’ll try to do another desert camp next year and let you know. Or maybe I’ll do Lon and Susan’s week in Wisconsin: 100 miles a day with stops in small-town cafes for lunch and stops for ice cream each afternoon…. Let’s see…