200 KM Ride Report, November 13, 2004
by Susan Plonsky

Twenty riders took part in the first Southern Arizona brevet from Casa Grande. Among them were 2 women: Bullshifters Rowena Wildin and Susan Snow.

The rider coming the farthest distance: Michael Alexa from Indiana.

Farthest riders from Arizona: Richard Combs from Pinetop and Mike Allen from Wilcox.

I counted three people who were new to brevet riding; most were experienced long distance riders.

There was one tandem team: Sid Ogino and Eddie McKee. Seems they were pretty popular. Riders flocked to them like sea gulls behind a fishing trawler.

The most famous attendees were perhaps:

Sandiway Fong, legendary brevet rider from New Jersey now from Tucson, and

Dave Jordan, former Boston Regional Brevet Administrator, and now cycling gypsy.

Mike Sturgill and 4 other Bullshifters did their club proud.

No major catastrophes but there was a clash of cultures at the yoga studio as riders came back to the studio for checkpoint #3 and yoga students were practicing their art. Riders thought it was weird to be balancing forward on one leg. And yoga students thought it was weird that riders' shoes make a clicking sound when they walk.

Now for the Arizona moment. I drove out to the reservation for the lunch checkpoint and parked in the wide shoulder, being careful not to drive over the discarded tequila bottles. About 50 feet downwind was a dead deer or moose by the side of the road. I walked up to look at it - plenty of fur left, but the skull bones were exposed. I was parked far enough away so we wouldn't smell it during lunch. At one point, as we were chowing down on turkey sandwiches, we watched as two dogs strolled in off the reservation and started tugging on that carcass, like a left over pizza from the night before. It was better than a National Geographic special. No one vomitted so i guess they were OK with it.

Hope to see you all in January.

Ride safe.

Susan Plonsky
Southern Arizona Regional Brevet Administrator