Mountain Crazy Biking

Jesse has a mountain bike race Feb 19th in Tucson, called El Tour Del Pueblo. It's a 24 hour relay race, and he has a five man team that he's riding with. It involves 4,000 cyclists coming together for three days (yes, I did say three days) to camp out in Oro Valley, just north of Tucson.

Even though the race itself doesn't start until Saturday at noon, if you don't show up early (like Thursday night), good luck finding a camping spot. Thankfully, unlike most of America, Tucson's lows are set to be in the mid-forties, with highs in the 70s all weekend. Whew. The thought of sleeping in a tent when it's -6 for a mountain bike race just wouldn't seem worth it!

The tricky part about this tour? It's 24 hours, meaning it races all night long. Did I mention it takes place in Tucson? In case you didn't know, unlike Flagstaff (where we live), Tucson is in the desert. The desert means there are cactus, and mountain biking in the dark (yes, they do have headlamps) is almost a guaranteed cactus attack. Each relay lap is 15 miles, so imagine racing 15 mountain biking miles (which are much harder than 15 road biking miles) at 3 am for 1.5 hours, getting attacked by the cactus somewhere in there, and then coming back to your tent wreaking of B.O. to crawl in a sleeping bag next to your wife. Those of you that have read this far must be thinking, "Boy she really must love him"...I do. Happy late Valentine's Day honey!

So you know a person (my husband) is passionate about cycling when they find it fun to sleep in a tent for three days with 4,000 other loud people, up at all hours of the night, exhausted and smelly, covered in cactus needles. And they find this fun?! Most definitely. I, for one, think they're out of their minds; but then again, folks look at Jesse and I and think we are out of our minds when we want to ride coast to coast with 50 twenty-somethings for six weeks for the rest of our lives. Yeah, maybe we are. But what is out of our minds is in God's!

So, if you remember Jesse the weekend after Valentine's Day, pray for his racing and his protection! If you can remember Saddle Lights, pray for continued financial support as we fundraise towards launching the tours next summer. Thank you, as always!

Blessings!

Kelly