I thought I’d be finished with El Tour de Tucson posts by now, but I thought these were interesting enough to highlight.

Both Victor Riquelme and Tiburon Erickson posted blogs about their El Tour de Tucson experiences.

You’ve probably heard of Victor, who I wrote about a few weeks ago when he signed a pro contract after only riding for three years.

Like me, you’ve probably never heard of Tiburon. I only learned of her when a Tucson Velo reader posted a link to her blog post recapping her El Tour de Tucson ride.

Victor recounts his 16th place, 4:33 ride in his blog on the TriSports.com site.

With less than 10 miles remaining in the race myself and Thomas Jondall(Landis/Trek) attacked, and attempted to bridge across to the leading break. We made up half the distance, bringing the gap down to just 30 seconds, and the chase appeared to let us go. With just 5 kilometers remaining a very fast P&S Specialized rider, Rafael Escarcega, rode by Thomas and I like we were standing still. We were immediately caught by the chase, and I hung on to the back until the left turn onto Congress where I promptly cramped, threw up all over myself, and finished last out of the chase. Eric Marcotte(Pista Palace) outsprinted his breakaway companion for the win, with Hector Rangel(P&S Specialized) and Rafael Escarcega(P&S Specialized) sealing the 2nd and 3rd steps on the podium.

Tiburon on the other hand recounts her 11:51, second-to-last-place finish on her blog, Shark Bait.

Those last 5 or 6 miles were the longest of my life. As we turned under the freeway to head up to the finish there were a few people along the road that were directing us in which way to go. We made the final left turn and I could see some of the scaffolding that hadn’t been taken down. The tears came again and when I crossed over that line I was overcome with emotion. We were then told that we came across the wrong side of the finish line and had to go over it again because it didn’t trip our timing chip! So we rode over again. It was pretty much a ghost town – everyone had gone home except for a few people taking things apart. After 11:51 minutes from starting – and nearly 10 hours in the saddle on my bike – I had finished. I got off my bike and sobbed for a few minutes. And I took a moment to  let it all soak in.

Check out the rest of the El Tour de Tucson posts here.