“Three and a half hours…” That’s all we would need to ride from the house, rendezvous at the coffee shop, then go up and down Mt. Lemon in Tucson, AZ. According to CZ, founder and head lackey at missingsaddle.com.

92 miles, five and a half hours, and 6000 plus feet of climbing later we found out he was wrong. Granted, the Desert Dog and I did get a bit lost navigating our way back through Tucson on the way in.

Anyway, the climb is 30 miles, 21 real climbing miles, at maybe 5% average grade. The views are spectacular. In keeping with my 6 degrees of separation rule we rolled up on some guy slogging along who was wearing a jersey from the shop that sponsors our team in Cincinnati. He moved out here recently. At about 1 hour and 15 minutes into our climb we were caught by Health Net Pro Cycling Team rider Matt Cooke who had just finished do a :55 interval at 316 watts. He and I are the same weight at just under 60 kilos. I was maintaining 200 watts. Granted, we were going at a not too hard talking pace, but I don’t think I could have done a mile of over 300 watts without blowing. That’s why he getting ready to race the Tour de Georgia and I am getting ready to work it. Speaking of the TdG, I asked Matt what he thought about the team time trial and if they had been practicing it. He said he had not yet ridded his TT bike, but was sure they would get in some drills before the race.

The top of the climb was basically shut down except for one place — The Lemon Cafe — which was serving up overpriced everything. We grabbed cokes and flipped it around. It only took :35 to get down. Nice!

CZ and The Dog talk about the upcoming climb.

Skiles

Overpriced corndogs, pie, etc…

The beginning of the descent. Notice the bear crossing sign.

Lost dog checking the phone map at mile 87.5.

The poor dog gets a cramp after the ride.