076 – Why drive when you can ride to the trail? (Randolph Ford, Author of “The Loop – America’s #1 Recreational Trail”)

We live in “America’s Bike Town” (Tucson, Arizona).  Our weather allows us to ride 365 days a year and the cycling options here are unmatched.   We have 100’s of miles of single-track that range from cross country to big mountain.  The road cycling attracts pros and amateurs from all over the world to ride our vast network of paved roads and the epic climb up Mt. Lemon.  We have one of the best indoor skateparks in the world that was specifically designed with freestyle BMX at its core (Premises Park).  We have multiple outdoor BMX racetracks and a huge new public pump track (Naranja Park).  We have amazing bike events including El Tour de Tucson, 24 Hrs in the Old Pueblo, Cyclovia, the weekly “Shootout” and many more.  If you are a cyclist, you should seriously consider visiting or even moving to Tucson.

All that said, one of the coolest cycling related things we have here is The Loop.  The Loop is a 137-mile paved trail around the city with spurs out to a few of Tucson’s suburbs.

This episode features Randy Ford, Author of “The Loop – America’s #1 Recreational Trail” (available on Amazon and in many cycling retailers throughout Tucson for $20).  In the episode we talk a lot about the Loop, what it has to offer, and how Randy’s book helps cyclists navigate and use The Loop to get to many of Tucson’s cool destinations.  And since we are a mountain bike focused podcast, we go into detail on how you can use the loop, instead of your car, to get to some of our best mountain bike trails.

Amazon Link  to Randy's book: “The Loop – America’s #1 Recreational Trail”
https://a.co/d/9DsN25E

Pima County’s Website on “The Loop”
https://www.pima.gov/162/The-Chuck-Huckelberry-Loop

Big thanks to Jesus at “Ride Tucson” (which by the way, is right off The Loop) for hosting this podcast recording and feeding us some outstanding home cooked food!  Check out Ride Tucson here… https://ridetucsonaz.com/

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Transcript

Josh: 0:11

do you prefer randy or randy's?

Randy Ford: 0:14

fine, randy's fine.

Josh: 0:15

That's what I go with most of the time yeah, we were just talking earlier about how randy said his, his, uh, his mind feels like he's, he's 30, but his body says what are you doing? You're about him.

Randy Ford: 0:24

My sense of humor thinks I'm 13. My body thinks I'm 30 and in my prime. And yeah, that's the truth. My body wonders why I'm not dead yet.

Dane: 0:31

My knees are like you're 90.

Josh: 0:34

That's why you're riding an e-bike right.

Dane: 0:36

Sometimes it's not every day.

Josh: 0:47

You make me sound like I ride e-bikes all the time.

Dane: 0:48

It's just with you. Well, you're already such a better rider than me. Why do you got to put me through that man? I have been doing a lot lately and that's just time versus enjoyment, you know so randy.

Josh: 0:54

This guy's like a downhill mountain biker and I'm like a cross-country mountain biker and we we rode a couple. We've written a lot lately but we rode out at star pass like last sunday or whatever, yeah, and we're doing this black trail coming down. He's like this is the only downhill trail in tucson or whatever, and he's and he's like I'm gonna go do this line off to the left. I'm like you can't ride that on a bike.

Dane: 1:12

There's no line there's no line to ride. What are you doing, like we're?

Randy Ford: 1:15

gonna be in the emergency room he's like don't worry just yeah, I'm like it'll be uneventful and I always feel like I'm the guy that's there to fill out the accident reports at the end yeah, I have been that guy.

Dane: 1:26

It sucks so, especially when it's like a 15 year old, yeah so but yeah, I try not to get hurt anymore so it's sunday afternoon and we're here at uh jesus shop ride tucson yep yeah, and beautiful shop by the beautiful shop, yeah, new uh, and we'll have jesus.

Josh: 1:42

We got a fourth mic set up over there, so he'll jump in for a minute. I feel underdressed under. Yeah, we don't you yeah like you gotta have

Dane: 1:49

like style yeah you maybe need a tie, maybe a clip-on, yeah it's super nice.

Josh: 1:54

Yeah, spandex clip-on, yeah, yeah and uh, you just got done with the bike swap.

Dane: 2:00

So yeah, twice a year in tucson there's a big bike swap going to make some extra cash. Yeah, so, yeah, trying to get more tools for the shop, yeah, so yeah, and how was uh, I did pretty good. Um, I don't think we met our goal, but I'm still gonna buy the tooling that I need to as a strategy guy.

Josh: 2:16

I love the fact that you had a goal. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely super happy yeah.

Dane: 2:19

and then the other goal is I almost chained myself to the table so I don't go buy stuff I did buy. So, yeah, I did buy. I almost bought another vintage bike which I really like. I bought a Firebird.

Josh: 2:34

You bought a Firebird today.

Dane: 2:35

Just the frame.

Josh: 2:35

Just the frame, just the frame.

Dane: 2:36

Yeah, so we'll build that up and probably sell it. It's pretty sexy, it's kind of pink, okay, so it's pretty cool. And then, uh, that's about it. I really didn't buy much, but I I'm not kidding, like this is one of the first ones that I have not walked around and looked at stuff. I just was super disciplined, yes, and then we got a really cool tri bike that we're going to hang in the shop, that's it's made by on it. Like if I were to just picture a bike for me, it would have flames and say guru, I'm just waiting for the cease and desist order.

Dane: 3:11

Yeah right, yeah, no, everybody asked that you know, I did make sure they were out of business so before you, before you took the name, do you have anything to do with that? I'm not gonna no, I did watch it closely because my nickname's been mountain guru forever, so so I did notice it you know For sure.

Josh: 3:27

All right, tell us your dad joke before we get too far.

Dane: 3:30

Oh, yeah, so what? What do you call it when you steal your bike back from a bike thief?

Randy Ford: 3:40

Oh, great question.

Dane: 3:42

Other than justice? Absolutely Recycling, recycling, recycling, recycling, recycling. So yeah, other than justice, absolutely uh recycling recycling recycling, recycling, recycling.

Randy Ford: 3:48

So yeah, I don't know, man, and that happens a lot, do you have a?

Josh: 3:50

grown track here, yeah I thought it was a good one you know it's. It felt good when you read it to me earlier and it didn't didn't land.

Dane: 3:58

I don't know so we were um at the shop and, uh, you know our shop, uh, when I bought the shop I bought the building and when I bought it it was vacant for five years. So we have some transients, that kind of hang out and we're slowly letting them know to move somewhere else and we're very nice and cordial. But we walked out one day and they were hanging out on the back loading dock and there was a bike there and Ben looked at that bike and he goes that's my bike, it was stolen from my house, like a week ago. He looked at the kid and he goes that's my bike. And the kid's like what? I bought that bike? And he's like well, it's stolen, and we took the bike back. So we recycled that bike. That kid was not happy.

Randy Ford: 4:43

I put a tracker on my bike just to simplify things.

Dane: 4:45

Yep, yeah, I've got. There's a whole Facebook group that does that. There's a whole group of guys Um my buddy Aaron and my buddy um.

Josh: 4:54

Well, let's see they seek it, they seek out and try to find bikes.

Dane: 4:58

So there's this network on Facebook and they'll see a bike in town. Maybe it doesn't look right. Right, maybe the guy is pushing a shopping cart with a bike yeah, which does? Happen and, uh, they will put it up on facebook. And then all of a sudden, somebody will go that was just stolen out of my yard last week and they will tell they'll start putting the date, uh and the time and where they mean, and people will drive around and many people have gotten their bikes back that way, that's great it's.

Dane: 5:22

It's pretty crazy, but yeah, it sucks that we have to do that, but it's been. That little community, that little connection, that real time is really nice and it helps get some bikes back.

Josh: 5:35

We have this awesome resource in Tucson and we've talked about it several times on the podcast over the various episodes we have and I think at the time of your book it was 136 miles, it's 137, now 137. They've added a mile since your book.

Randy Ford: 5:52

Yeah, and they're about to bump it up a little bit more too, so Okay, so 137 miles paved trail.

Josh: 5:59

It actually goes all around like 54 miles of. It roughly goes around the whole Tucson so you can kind of circumnavigate all of Tucson. Then there's a couple spurs that go off in different directions that add. They kind of head you out to Oro Valley or out to Marana and, I think, down south a little bit it goes south of the Pima County Fairgrounds now. Oh, wow.

Randy Ford: 6:18

All the way across I-10 and down to the. There's an Academy down there south of the fairgrounds and that's a. That's where the trail terminates at this point.

Josh: 6:26

That must be the new section that they added.

Randy Ford: 6:28

That is the new section. Yeah, I think it's actually more than 137 miles, but I'm not sure how they count it.

Dane: 6:33

Yeah, I heard they just broke ground on some more up in Marana.

Randy Ford: 6:37

Yeah, it's a crazy thing. One of those spurs that you talked about goes all the way out to Gladden Farms. It's like six miles or seven miles, but it's an orphan trail because it doesn't connect to the loop. The Cal Portland cement plant right there on I-10 and Avro Valley Road wouldn't let them have a right-of-way because it's a construction facility. And why would we want to do that? Well, after a lot of relentless negotiation, the county finally got an easement through there. That's awesome.

Randy Ford: 7:06

And there was a light pole in the way and a lot of things. Jim Conroy, the Parks and Rec director at the Marana Parks and Rec, did a phenomenal job kind of heading that up and so they broke ground on that and they're going to connect from Avera Valley Road where the loop terminates in the north in Marana right now they're going to connect that about one mile section, so it'll be another seven miles to the to the north, so it's growing.

Dane: 7:30

I mean national recognition for this thing. Do we say what this is?

Randy Ford: 7:34

This is the loop that we're talking about and, uh, it's officially the Chuck.

Dane: 7:39

Huckleberry yeah, that's yeah, and he, he's a uh local politician policymaker, Retired he actually ironically had a bicycle accident about two years ago and ended up taking a disability retirement.

Randy Ford: 7:54

Yeah, but he was the sort of the steam engine behind getting the loop built out over the 30 years that he was roughly that. He was the Pima County supervisor. Yeah, administrator.

Josh: 8:06

Well, is that how long it's been in work is 30 years? That he was roughly that he was the Pima County supervisor? Yeah, and administrator. Well, is that how long? How long it's been in work is 30 years?

Randy Ford: 8:08

Yeah, I don't know if you guys were in town and I was 83 floods that wiped out a whole bunch of bridges and things. Well, pima County flood control department got a ton of money and started mitigating the banks of the washes, so we wouldn't have a repeat of that. And a guy from IBM I don't remember his name, but he was an avid cyclist in town he advocated and just literally chased Huckleberry from meeting to meeting until he finally got a sit-down with him and he said why don't you put a path on top of the bank of the rivers and connect them all? And Huckleberry kind of made that idea his and away. They went so and over the course of the years, the trail sections got extended, added to and so forth, and in 2018, they actually looped the whole center loop around the city of Tucson, so you can ride in a 54-mile circle.

Dane: 9:02

I remember in high school I would ride the section along the Rito. I think it stopped at Campbell and went down to La Cañada or La Cholla, I can't remember.

Jesus: 9:14

It was pretty short.

Dane: 9:15

And I would just lap it. I would go back and forth. And I would do it at night with no lights. It was pretty crazy.

Dane: 9:21

But I would do it in the middle of the night and that was my training back then. But I would do it in the middle of the night and that was my training back then, and then I would ride home up Mountain, which was connected to it, yep, but you had to go to a bridge. They didn't build the Mountain Bridge for a while, but you had to go over to Campbell and then I would go across and then get on it and then ride down and back and forth. So it was pretty crazy. That was in high school, so that was. I'm not man. I hate this every time you get me to say my age on this. Uh, that was in 90, like the early nineties.

Josh: 9:53

So you were like in your mid thirties at that point.

Dane: 9:55

Yeah, 12, 12 and a half. So.

Randy Ford: 9:58

I spent six of my best years in high school. You liked it so much.

Josh: 10:03

Added a couple years. So the reason we're talking to Randy today is that you I think you published in 2020? 2021.

Randy Ford: 10:10

2021. And then again impressed again in 2022.

Josh: 10:14

It's got this great book. It's called the Loop, america's Number One Recreational Trail, and if you're interested, you can go to Amazon. Yes, you can get it at Amazon. It's 20 bucks.

Randy Ford: 10:23

I think Prime Amazon it's $20. Pretty much everybody that sells it it's $20. There's about a dozen retailers in Tucson that sell it, mostly bike shops.

Josh: 10:32

A few group hubs Jump on Jesus. Yeah, Ride.

Randy Ford: 10:35

Tucson Ride Tucson.

Josh: 10:41

Jesus is going to join us. We're in Jesus's. You missed the earlier we were talking about. When we come into your shop, we felt like we were underdressed, like your style is like way better.

Randy Ford: 10:55

This is like the Neiman Marcus of bike shops.

Josh: 10:57

Yeah, it's super classy, but not like in an exclusive way. I don't feel like there's any exclusivity here, like you're excluding anyone from your shop?

Randy Ford: 11:05

You mean, like you only had to apologize one time? Yeah, thank you guys.

Josh: 11:12

And thanks for hosting us. Jesus. This is awesome. We had some great carnitas that Mrs made, which was amazing.

Dane: 11:19

Yeah, I'll tell you what. And then there's going to be some street corn. I'm definitely getting some street corn, so I just rent it, but it's good stuff because it comes out the next day.

Josh: 11:33

So eventually we're going to get to. One of the things we want to talk about for our mountain biking community is how you can use the loop to get to some of, I think, the majority of the popular um mountain bike trails in town, uh, without having to ride on the so. So might as well, just ride from your house. Don't be lazy. Ride from your house. You don't have to be on the street, uh, with very limited roads, uh, or, in many cases, no road interaction at all, which is amazing, um. But I'd like to start with, like you know what gave you the idea and tell us about the process of uh. So so tell us about the book, what's in the book and the process. You know, how did you end up writing this book?

Randy Ford: 12:10

It's, it's a it's kind of an interesting story At least it's interesting to me. Um, so I, I did a lot of cycling when I was, uh, when I was, um, younger, and with my boys. Um, I've got two younger boys and I injured my knee in a in a running accident many years ago and it the arthritis finally caught up with me and I had to give up cycling. I switched over to a recumbent bike and that was great, but but I was living out in Noro Valley in a fairly hilly area, and I just couldn't deal with the knees on the hill. So I made my first electric bike that way, and that was back in about 2016. So you said you made it.

Randy Ford: 12:50

Yeah, I electrified my son's E-Z cycle put a motor on it and built a battery and away I went. There wasn't a lot available back then, but there's a lot now. When I retired from my day job in 2021, one of the first things that I did was we sold our house and moved into Tucson and, lo and behold, we wound up unbeknownst to me at the time, but our neighborhood has a gate that accesses right onto the loop, oh nice. So I wound up riding my first e-bike about the same time and those two things kind of clicked and I spent a lot of time out on the loop riding my e-bike looking at that Pima County map that they, that multi-fold out thing that has the loop but nothing else around it.

Randy Ford: 13:35

So my question is where's the restrooms, where's the parking lots, where's the, where's the places to get coffee, uh, to get a, to get a brewski or whatever? And there was nothing out there about it. So I started making some little maps for myself, and one thing led to another. I showed a couple of friends, one of whom owned a bike shop, the maps that I had created. He goes, dude, if you put these in a book, make them a little cleaner. This could be a big deal. So I kind of took that seriously and I had, at that point, finally realized that the little section of the loop I was riding was a much small. It was a small piece of a much bigger yeah, a much bigg er trail system. So, um, away I went and I rode and and filmed everything and documented everything, wrote every mile of the loop multiple times and, uh, threw everything together and, and, in about six months I had the book done and we got it out just in time for the Christmas season in 2021.

Josh: 14:34

Wow Okay, it only took you six months.

Randy Ford: 14:35

Yeah, it actually took me five months to do it. You were retired.

Josh: 14:38

So this was your full-time job.

Randy Ford: 14:39

Exactly it really was my full-time job.

Josh: 14:41

I don't want my wife to hear this.

Dane: 14:42

What did you do before?

Randy Ford: 14:43

I was a quality manager at a ceramics plant here in Tucson, so I've got a technical background in manufacturing engineering degree and some other things. So I was used to writing reports and doing publications and things like that.

Dane: 14:55

Fairly meticulous.

Randy Ford: 14:58

Like it's really so put together. I had some skills so I was able to put all those together with the book and get it all put out, and in the meantime Amazon had come up with this new publishing program they call Kindle Direct Publishing. I've had some books out on Amazon already, but they were in the old system and that meant Amazon's goal at that time was that the author doesn't make any money. And when they changed this system they actually listened to their author community and they rearranged it so that the authors could actually make money on the royalties on the book. Plus, I can buy author copies at a significant discount, which allows me to be sort of a publishing company here in Tucson and I can distribute the books, so they do all the printing for you.

Josh: 15:39

So you don't have to deal with a printer, you're dealing with Amazon.

Randy Ford: 15:41

So the big thing always used to be the cost of the book always was dependent on the volume. But I can buy one copy at the same price. I can buy 1,000 copies, which makes a huge difference in terms of not having to tie up a bunch of money in inventory, so that really cuts the whole thing loose and that's why Amazon has exploded with authors now.

Dane: 15:59

Well, yeah, that's a great way for young authors or new authors to get into it and not just hit that wall of you've got to get somebody to support it. So that's really cool.

Randy Ford: 16:08

So I ended up putting out press releases to about a dozen different media outlets, and Kagan nine called me back the very next day after they saw it, cause that's our, that's our local that's our local news here in Tucson.

Dane: 16:22

Did you know they're on your side tucson, they're there.

Josh: 16:27

Did you know? They're on your side.

Randy Ford: 16:27

That's their tagline I've heard that they called back right away and wanted to do a piece on it. And, uh, right before christmas they did. Right after thanksgiving they did a, uh, they did about a minute and a half piece. That was really well put together and book sales took off like crazy after that on Amazon.

Dane: 16:44

Well, I mean the Loop has become nationally known, if not world. It's number one in America and you're not overstating that. It's amazing. So it's the infrastructure and if we described it a little bit because we've got a lot of listeners all over the place that don't live in Tucson but it's paved in most cases along a. We call it the river, but we have to explain that it's a wash.

Dane: 17:07

It's a wash it's only got water in it once in a while when it rains, but it is uh got a lot of vegetation. There's a little um workout, uh, sections along parks you know we go to the children's memorial park which is right alongside it uh, there's playgrounds. It'll hit a lot of things, jcc. It'll hit a lot of things in tucson, including the mountain bike trails.

Randy Ford: 17:28

Yeah, uh and it I'll give you a quick rundown there's there's um almost 30 parks directly adjacent to the loop. Yeah, there's 13 hotels, that are right. You know parking lot adjacent so you can stay at a hotel and just jump on the loop that's 50 50 coffee shops, 200 restaurants, 11 RV parks, about seven bike shops. That are all within a quarter mile or less of the loop.

Josh: 17:54

Yeah, including Ride Tucson, Yep exactly and Guru.

Dane: 17:57

Yep, yep, I think we're a little farther away.

Josh: 17:59

You missed a couple here. Look, I got it highlighted. Look at that.

Dane: 18:02

I might have. Yeah, look at that, you did the research, I did the research.

Josh: 18:06

This time right 21 craft beer stops.

Randy Ford: 18:08

Okay.

Josh: 18:09

Four farmer's markets.

Randy Ford: 18:11

Yep, that's right.

Dane: 18:12

Four disc golf courses?

Randy Ford: 18:14

Oh, no way. In fact, one of the oldest disc golf courses in the nation is right on the loop.

Josh: 18:19

Wow, that's awesome. So we should probably double click on something you said to make sure people understand. So we live desert southwest and are, you know, pretty arid most of the year and in the like it's late summer, early fall. We get a monsoon season, right, and um, our ground is not like kind of anywhere else in the world where um doesn't soak up the moisture very well. And during the monsoon season, during the monsoon season, we get a significant amount of rain in a very short amount of time and the ground won't soak it up, so that water's got to go somewhere. And so you mentioned the floods in 1983. Right, they redid the kind of wash system. The wash system is to help tucson and the surrounding areas manage that water and and kind of what randy was saying is when they, after the flood, when they redid it, they were they. You know, you can't, you you name the guy. I can't remember his name right now Chuck.

Randy Ford: 19:05

Huckleberry. Yeah, chuck Huckleberry. Oh, chuck, okay, but there was someone that was hounding Chuck.

Josh: 19:10

Yeah, I can get that name.

Dane: 19:11

No, that's all right, it doesn't matter, that's okay, and so they were shoring up the embankments so they wouldn't wash away. So putting concrete effectively on the embankments so they wouldn't wash away.

Josh: 19:22

And then, during that time, they just built out this amazing bike trail. And not only does it give us, the cycling community in Tucson, just an amazing place to ride 136 miles with very little places where you have to interact with traffic at all, but it also gives the watershed access to all of the washes that they have to manage and maintain throughout the year, which I think is pretty cool, yeah, so, yeah, part of that build out is putting in ramps for maintenance, for access, for rescue, what have you?

Dane: 19:53

So they're all along the loop. You see these, yeah, these concrete embankments. In fact, I think for a while that was causing a problem because too much water was going away and so they had to do some little ripples to get the water not to flow as fast.

Randy Ford: 20:07

So how many have you sold? We've, we're, probably, we're pushing 2,500 copies, I think, in the two years that it's been out there. Yeah, the average book on Amazon, for example, sells about 500 copies. Right, and we've, we've, far exceeded.

Dane: 20:30

I was expecting to sell a couple hundred copies and you know we're up to a couple thousand and, and, and it's still going strong too. I bet you, after this podcast he'll, he'll get at least 10 more purchases, for I'm thinking four, cause I'm going to get one and I'll get some for the shop.

Josh: 20:38

Yeah, there you go. Just kidding, I bet you'll do well, like six people listen to this just so, you, you know, look at Josh's face.

Randy Ford: 20:46

He's like no, that's not true, it's a lot more than six.

Dane: 20:51

There's at least 12.

Josh: 20:52

Okay, so I got a handful of questions, if that's okay.

Randy Ford: 20:55

Fire away.

Josh: 20:56

Did I cut you?

Randy Ford: 20:57

off?

Josh: 20:57

No, no, we do that from time to time. Oh yeah, Was there something that surprised you to learn when you were like doing the research and writing this book? Something about Tucson or the loop that surprised you?

Randy Ford: 21:09

Yeah, the one thing was the extensive or the extent of the trail system. You know, when they finish this section in Marana you'll be able to get on the loop down by the Pima County Fairgrounds and ride 50. I think I figured it was 55 miles straight, without duplicating anything to get all the way out to gladden farms and marana yeah, it's only have to cross a road like once or twice so that's like the far southeast of tucson to the far extreme northwest.

Dane: 21:34

Yeah, that's correct awesome, I just can't get over. And people use this for transportation, like commuting yep uh to get around town. They use it for recreation yeah they use it for every. It's just really cool it's. It makes us one of the one of the reasons we're top. Tucson is top cycling destinations in the country is the loop is the loop.

Josh: 21:54

So, so I've, I've been, uh, so we're, we're mountain bikers, and we've had a physiologist, um, or or an ex physiologist, I guess, on the podcast a couple of times named Andrew Wolf, and I'm trying to like figure out how to keep up with my wife. Now I'm trying to figure out how to keep up with Dan and Andrew's like you're going to have to do some zone two work. And I'm like what the hell? I'm a mountain biker, what the hell does that even mean Zone two work? And he's like you got to go ride a long distance really slow. I'm like why?

Dane: 22:20

Uh low intensity.

Josh: 22:21

He's like no, you need to do it. So I started doing it and I was just riding the loop and, um, man, did it blow up my, my capabilities on the trail. Interesting, it was just amazing. And so there was an epiphany in here that kind of relates to your book and into the loop. So I would just jump on.

Josh: 22:37

And I live on the on the Southeast side of town. So I jumped on at Valencia and we're like fantasy Island right there at the Valencia Trailhead and I just ride as far as I go. You know, once a month I'd probably do the whole loop, just kind of start there and come all the way back around. But I never really paid attention to like what was going on. Like I was just on the trail, I didn't think about the things that were off. Yeah, and then Dane did a social ride that used the loop from his shop, from his shop's kind of midtown, to a little farther east. We went to Trail Dust Town, which is like maybe a half mile, quarter mile off the loop, and it got me thinking, man. So I started looking through your book and I'm like holy shit, there's like all these different things I can do. I've never ridden the Urban Assault Ride and I realize now that I can hop on the loop, I can ride up to brandy fenton and I can go right behind brandy fenton and go do the urban assault ride, which is an easy mountain bike trail I can ride on my gravel bike super fun then you can stop at the hop shop

Dane: 23:33

stop at the hop shop, get a beer right, and all of that information is available in your book it is, yeah, which is really cool, and anybody visiting tucson this would be a great guide for, like, like, just the craft brewing all of that stuff, to just get into the culture immediately and not have to kind of poke around and figure it out, going to all kinds of different websites that don't pay attention to cyclists yep, have you taken this to the, to the resorts that have, that's that rent bikes to tourists that come in?

Randy Ford: 24:00

um, I have, there's a couple of places that rent bikes, that do carry the book. There's a few places that I didn't really capitalize on the cyclist. I've been more focusing on the e-bike folks, because that's kind of what I'm riding now, do the physiology and everything else. But at the same time I'm looking at expanding the network of potential retailers, because there are cyclist groups and there's e-bike groups and there's a variety of different….

Dane: 24:30

There's walkers that use the loop. I mean you don't have to be on a bike to use it, that's true. There's exercises. I mean I know people that are getting apartments that are right on the loop, just so they have access to go walk.

Randy Ford: 24:42

There's two apartment complexes in town that have the loop in the name of the apartment complex. There's one at Cortland on the loop over by La Cholla and River, and then there's one on the east side, something on the loop.

Dane: 24:52

Yeah, there was a bike shop called the Loop Bike Shop. Right, yeah, that was out of containers and they set them up right next to the loop.

Josh: 24:59

I mean, transit is over there, right. What's her name? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Jesus: 25:03

That's transit cycles right.

Dane: 25:14

It's over there and then uh, man, yeah, there's uh. That's what I like about this book is it really gets people all over Tucson but connected so, which is really cool.

Josh: 25:19

So I'm thinking like star pass, you know, uh, ventana Canyon, like, like you know, all of these resorts that rent but have rental bike fleets.

Randy Ford: 25:28

That's a great next step. I'll probably look into that after we're done here and before I get home today.

Josh: 25:36

Because he rode his bike here. I did ride my bike here.

Jesus: 25:39

Which is awesome.

Dane: 25:40

You're riding more than I am. I really envy that. I love seeing people getting out on there. Are you dealing with anything? You said your knee.

Randy Ford: 25:50

Yeah, I have a knee that's just been bone on bone for years and I can't um doing the startup and doing the hill climb. It's uh, it's uh, yeah, um abandoned hope, all ye who enter here, for my knees.

Dane: 26:02

Josh jokes that I'm always on my e-bike and I would say that I try to mix it up, but I am on it a lot and it has to do with a lot of my knee issues and it's been a God saver for letting me get out clear my head. You know, just enjoy cycling, enjoy the outdoors and not be in pain the next day.

Randy Ford: 26:19

Right. So you asked a little earlier, josh, if there was anything that surprised me. One of the things was the official prohibition of e-bikes on the loop, which is kind of an interesting scenario because the loop is really kind of operated by three different entities in Tucson. The Pima County Flood Control is the one that built the loop and they're technically the owners of the loop, if you want to consider it that way. They provide all the money for the upgrades or most of it and that sort of thing. Pima County Parks and Rec is the operator of the loop, if you will. It's technically a county park and it goes through several jurisdictions it goes into the city of tucson, it goes to marana, it goes to oro valley and those entities, oftentimes um oro valley and marana especially, they maintain their sections of the loop.

Randy Ford: 27:14

Um, but the the rules that govern the loop, including a no motors prohibition that's been around since the loop was started. Yeah, that hasn't been addressed to address e-bikes, because that's a sort of a different kind of a motor. Plus, it's got a piece for americans with disability act, because technically an e-bike is classified by the ada as an electric assistive device. Yeah, yep, so if you have a need for an electric assistive device, even though the rules officially state that that's not the case. You can't ride it. You, in fact, can legally.

Jesus: 27:49

There's an exemption for that. Yeah, exactly.

Randy Ford: 27:52

I did a lot of research when I did this book because I thought, you know, we need to kind of address the inconsistency or the lack of detail in terms of what to expect. One of the things that's interesting about the loop is that there is a limited almost no law enforcement present of any kind. So if there is a prohibition, no one's ever gotten a ticket for it. There's no enforcement.

Josh: 28:16

There's no enforcement.

Randy Ford: 28:18

The sheriff's auxiliary volunteers have a bike patrol that they do. That's generally in the higher traffic problem areas like around downtown Santa Cruz. Yeah, exactly, and and and there are more out there to give a presence. They don't have any enforcement powers. If they have to do something, they have to call a deputy, on the, on their walkies and and that's not a bad thing necessarily, but it is to say that there's just, it's just created a lot of uncertainty about, I know, dozens of people who were going to come to Tucson when they found out there was a prohibition. They said, well, I'll go somewhere else until you guys figure this out.

Dane: 28:53

Yeah, yeah, that's for sure, and in fact I didn't want to call you out.

Josh: 28:58

So I'm glad you volunteered that.

Randy Ford: 29:00

He's got a whole section that talks about it yeah, yeah, and that's how it has changed since my book came out, the county has added a section in their in on their uh loop section of their uh their website. Yeah, that the faq page, and they have a section in there that acknowledges that if you have an assistive need, that you could ride an e-bike. Yeah, they sort of imply that you have to prove it, but the federal government says you don't, you can't ask somebody to prove it. Um, so it's very confusing. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that uncertainty and confusion. I'm kind of working behind the scenes in some organizations I'm involved with to try to try to bring this into a public discussion and make some decisions about what should be done.

Josh: 29:41

Yeah, so I would. So I would guess I and I read the loop once or twice a week. I would guess 25% of the people I see on the loop or on e-bikes right now, yeah, I would call it 15 to 20.

Randy Ford: 29:50

Yeah, about the same.

Dane: 29:51

Um, how many of them have you seen like run down people or maybe uh, are they?

Josh: 29:56

like I haven't yet to see that.

Dane: 29:57

How about the burnouts? How many?

Jesus: 29:59

burnouts have you?

Randy Ford: 29:59

seen Like uh, are they doing a hundred miles an?

Dane: 30:10

hour, like how fast are they going?

Randy Ford: 30:11

But seriously Zero, actually. Okay, most of the people that I see riding e-bikes are elderly. Yeah, they're going a very reasonable speed. They're the friendliest people you'd want to meet out there and they're the most considerate. Yeah, what's interesting is, you know, you always get teenagers on these things, or guys in their 20s with no shirts that think that going 25 miles an hour is the way that they're supposed to ride them.

Josh: 30:34

But I see a lot of spandex guys going 25 miles an hour that think that that's what they're supposed to do On acoustic bikes, and I get passed a lot more by people on acoustic pedal bikes than I do on people with e-bikes.

Randy Ford: 30:47

There's no question about it, so yeah it's, it's a, it's a.

Dane: 30:51

It's a tricky thing.

Randy Ford: 30:52

I really think we need more policies that don't address whether or not you have a motor, but whether or not you're a jerk you know, yeah, it's like, yeah, everybody that has really taken a serious look at this and there's an organization called people for bikesikes out of Boulder, colorado.

Josh: 31:08

They just had their conference here last week. Yeah, they did, that's right.

Randy Ford: 31:16

I went to one of their conferences a couple of years ago identifies that the use profile of an e-bike on a shared use trail is virtually undistinguishable from the use profile of a of a pedal acoustic bike. Yeah, and yeah, they are capable of going a little faster, but they generally kind of don't. Um, they weigh more. That's the. That's correct. Yes, Um, but you know the people that are on them ride them a lot more. Um, but it doesn't really represent a big downside in terms of additional risk, based on all of the statistics and the data that's been generated over the past few years, as these bikes have become more prevalent nationwide on shared use trails and public trails.

Josh: 32:00

And we should clarify, like, primarily, what we're talking about is type one or type two?

Dane: 32:04

Yeah.

Josh: 32:05

Which are pedal cysts or throttle, but they're limited to 20 miles an hour. That's correct.

Dane: 32:10

There's a class three that goes up to 28. You will see those on motorways. Uh, they're, they're legal there and and that one gets a little fuzzy. But honestly, I rode a road bike and when I ride a road bike I go faster than 20 miles an hour. So an e-bike on the road I feel like is frustrating If it stops at 20, I need one that goes faster, and so I'm totally down on the trail. We're limited by the trail. We rarely see people out of control or anything on e-bikes, because the trail will just slow you down like I never hit my limiter, except for maybe a couple sections here and there a little trivia for you.

Josh: 32:44

I know you know the answer to this because of our conversation with cube, but what is the type one pedal assist limitation in europe on miles per hour? Any idea? I think it's 15 six, I think it's 16, 16 kilometers like 20, 20 kilometers. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's crazy and then the motor wattage is 500 yep yeah, just another reason why north america is so much better than europe.

Josh: 33:04

Well, there's a lot of more distance between things, mainly I usually say america, but you know, I say north amer at this time to include our northern and southern brothers.

Dane: 33:12

I've always known that because of tacos.

Josh: 33:18

Never had a taco in Europe. I've had a lot of great food in Europe.

Randy Ford: 33:22

I just come here for the insight.

Dane: 33:23

We went to Austria and we found the one place in Austria that was a Mexican food place and it was pretty good. I got to admit. Yeah, they said they have a hard time getting some stuff and so and they and they had migrated from, I believe, mexico. It wasn't a spanish thing, it was mexican food and we found the one place and it was pretty good, so they wouldn't let us tip. That's that's, yeah, that's the value-added tax thing. Yeah, yeah, it's really really different.

Josh: 33:47

You don't tip there all right, right, if you guys are cool, I want to pivot really quick to the mountain bike trails. So, um, do you, using a Google maps and your book, um, I was able to kind of lay out the, I guess I guess seven of the most popular trail systems in Tucson. I think you can, you can, you can maybe quiz me if I missed any. Sure, um, and like the distance that they are from access from the loop. So, like, how many miles would you have to be on the road if you were to go, you know, transit from the loop to this mountain bike, to the trailhead?

Josh: 34:21

And then your book is set up. The page numbers is like grid coordinates that you have on the back of your map. So you can look at the map and you can find a grid. It's actually on the back cover. You can look at that map and there's a grid on there and there's numbers that kind of go all the way across the loop and you can be like 19, okay, and then you can open up to page 19 and it'll tell you all about it. It's really cool the way you set that up.

Randy Ford: 34:48

Yeah, it took a little effort to start.

Josh: 34:49

I'm going to start in the southeast of tucson and, uh, fantasy island is a is a mountain bike trail system, kind of blues and greens um, really fun really. Uh, the south side is like super accessible for brand new um cyclists. The north side of fantasy island it gets a little bit more technical, but it's nothing that's like out of reach for any kind of intermediate right cyclist super fun and the loop actually runs parallel it literally is right it's it's the western boundary of the of the fantasy island property so so there's actually three entrances to fantasy island.

Josh: 35:25

There's a east side, a north side and a south side. Both the north side and the south side you can get to you're right there right there, so like zero miles fall off your bike and into the parking.

Randy Ford: 35:33

Into the parking lot all right.

Josh: 35:35

The second one is urban assault trail, yep yeah, which is uh, it's a like a water um wash.

Dane: 35:42

Uh, it comes down from mount lemon through the neighborhoods, goes under a couple streets so there's culverts that you go through yeah and it's just a water easement in between neighborhoods that you know.

Dane: 35:54

Neighborhood people made trails and mountain bikers kind of went out there. There's like a little bit of dumping. So they've taken it and made like a. There's a maze, one of those rock mazes like you see in Sedona. There's a piles, there's little jumps here and there. It's really been adopted by the whole neighborhood and the mountain biking community as a really cool little trail. I think we did the other night with the kids, Yep, and we saw a snake, a frog, and we did about nine miles, which was awesome, and then we had the best pizza afterwards. So it was awesome.

Josh: 36:24

At the Hop Shop, yeah at the Hop Shop.

Dane: 36:26

There's this place called Chow Down.

Josh: 36:28

Okay, c shop. There's this place called chow down. Okay c? I, how do you suit? Ciao, ciao thank you.

Dane: 36:35

Oh, like the italian show exactly, yeah, great pizza.

Josh: 36:37

So all right. So so that's page 12, and I talked about fantasy island earlier. That's on both page 19 and 20 in the book, which you can also see the grid coordinate in the back. Uh, the next one is um catalina state. So if you go to the loop in Innovation Market, which is number 45 in that book, there you can actually go right across was it Oracle Road and that'll get you right into Catalina State Park. You can actually go under Oracle Road.

Randy Ford: 37:04

Oh, so you don't even have to cross. You don't have to cross, you can ride right under Oracle.

Josh: 37:08

Road Right under Oracle Road. That'll get you to Catalina State Park and then from Catalina State Park it opens up tons of options, right? Yes, it does. So you can go up the Catalina Bridal Trail. That'll take you up to the Chutes, to 50 Year, to Upper Gate, middle Gate, and, if you want to get crazy, you can even go up Charlottes Gap and up the backside of Mount Lemmon, if you want to.

Dane: 37:26

Yeah there's a huge network over there.

Josh: 37:28

Yeah, huge network. And again, that's zero miles on the loop.

Randy Ford: 37:33

Here's an interesting fun fact about Catalina State Park. When you come under Oracle, you end up right at the gate entrance for Catalina State Park. If you stop there and talk to the ranger, tell him you'd like to do just an in-and-out ride. You don't have to tell him that it's going to take you six hours to do the in and out ride. If you want to do an in and out ride, they'll let you go in without having to purchase a state park pass. That's cool.

Dane: 37:56

I didn't know that they're really friendly there. It's a great little place. In fact, purchasing the pass is great.

Josh: 38:01

There's picnic tables, picnic areas there's hikes, there's all kinds of stuff, it to take the whole family there and then you can do mountain bike rides from there. Yeah so, so if you follow um, if you go a little bit further north and go from page 45 to 46 in your book and you get to the loop in tangerine south, you can actually hook up to this big wash, to innovation connector and that will actually take you up to the big wash trailhead, that will take you to honeybee canyon, yep, and that opens up all the honeybee trails to you that's one of the interesting extensions that they did recently.

Randy Ford: 38:32

I think that might've been the 136 to 137 mile, because out of the Oro Valley marketplace Oro Valley marketplace, on the west boundary of the Oro Valley marketplace the loop travels right along that for the entire length of it. You get up to Tangerine, but you don't have to cross Tangerine. You cross under tangerine west of oro valley hospital and there's a trail that takes you up the back, um, all the way it's paved now, all the way to uh rancho vistoso boulevard, which is so you can do that and it's right along big wash.

Randy Ford: 39:03

You can, you can enter or exit along there and then, and then you can take rancho vistoso, with some great bike lanes all the way up to Honey Bee Canyon. Yep, yeah.

Dane: 39:10

And do.

Randy Ford: 39:10

Honey.

Josh: 39:11

Bee rides. Well, you can do the big wash shell too which is right there, Yep you can Again. So just to recap, four major trail systems in Tucson. I don't know if you'd say Urban Asylum is major, but three major.

Dane: 39:21

This is more major than the Catalina section. Okay, the upper 50 is huge.

Josh: 39:31

Yeah, is huge yeah the catalina to the upper 50 is kind of chunky, so not as much ridden, yeah, but you can get there, don't be scared. Yeah, I know, uh, get it.

Dane: 39:34

Get a full suspension um urban assault uh is huge because it's so in town it's close, it's a really popular trail we we're I. I see tons of riders out there all the time is it one way, or is it? No, it's double way. So you do have to be careful because you kind of, if you ride from the loop, you're going slightly uphill through the drainage, through the culverts, and then you get to a I forgot which road it is up there Gold Ranch. No, this is. We're talking about Urban Assault.

Josh: 40:02

Oh, Urban Assault, sorry.

Dane: 40:03

And when you come back down it's a slight descent and so you can pick up speed. In fact, the other night with the kids we're doing a kid's ride on Wednesday nights One of the guys and I know him, he's a good guy, so he wasn't malicious or a jerk or anything, but he ran into one of the kids Because he was just coming down so fast and, sure enough, when we get up to the top and start coming down, we were cooking, so it's pretty fun. But yeah, it is double way so you do have to be careful. There is a guy out there that if you happen to hit his property like the trail used to go through his property he will come out with a stick and try and hit you. I'm not even kidding. There's memes all over the internet about this guy.

Dane: 40:43

We're not sure how stable he is. There's many legal things going on with him right now, oh wow. But if you do a little jaunt on the pavement over and then back in, you avoid them totally, and so most of us know that route. But uh they're. They've kind of blocked off the trail that hits his neighborhood so that keeps innocent people from from getting accosted.

Josh: 41:02

Yes, all right. So fantasy, urban assault, the, the catalina state park, and then honeybee, all accessible, zero miles, and I know honeybeak makes it into other trails, but I'm going to get us there through tortolita, so I'll talk about that in a minute. But so the next is these are two trail systems on the west side of tucson that, um, I think less than three miles from the loop to the trailhead, uh, and I think actually in some of these go on a couple like a little bit bigger roads still totally cyclable. But I think, um, you could even do some neighborhood cut across to like if you don't, if you don't feel comfortable on the major roads. But the first one is at, uh, at at the loop and silver lake road, you can go up to the 36 street trailhead and that will get you to the whole tucson mountain park and robles pass.

Josh: 41:47

So we're talking star pass.

Dane: 41:48

I think they call it like the enchanted mountain hills or enchanted hills now yeah uh, tons of trails out there so much, that's probably probably, I would say, my least favorite, but it's the most popular yeah, probably the most popular uh mountain bike trails in tucson yeah, super super it's been around forever used to be old wagon. I was telling you, uh, old wagon route, and so you can still see some signs of that.

Josh: 42:10

So and if you go a little bit north of that, at the loop in camino del cerro, there's sweetwater preserves and that's like 3.3 miles that you can get over. Uh, and let's see, I haven't been. I gotta get back to saying the, the names of the pages here. So page 31 is the loop in silver lake that gets you to 36th street, and page 39 is the loop in camino del cer Cerro That'll get you to sweet water.

Randy Ford: 42:30

Yeah that works.

Dane: 42:32

And what's great about this book is you can, you're, you're saying all these pages, you can go to the page and they're cut off like a normal book, but you can then go reference the back, like you were saying, put it all together. So you can actually first look at the back of Tucson and go okay here's take and you can write down just the numbers that you want to go look at and make a list of which ones to go and then go through and get the descriptions.

Randy Ford: 42:57

So you guys have a website for your shop, right? Yeah, I put together because I've had um, I, I am one of the moderators for e-biking tucson and, uh, dennis brownfield and I run that facebook page and we get a ton of winter visitors that contact us ahead of time saying where can we ride, and that sort of thing. So I put together a uh, randy's favorite eight rides and it's rides all the way around the loop. Oh cool, it tells you where to start, where to stop and how long the ride is. What you'll see along the way. I'd be glad to forward that to you. You can post a copy on your website.

Josh: 43:25

Is there a way? Is it from? It's from the Facebook.

Randy Ford: 43:27

It's from it's yeah, it's from. It's actually built as a derivative of the book, okay, and it tells you some more details where to find it in the book and uh okay, and uh, and it's.

Josh: 43:36

is it a website or a Facebook page?

Randy Ford: 43:38

It's um. Actually the thing I did was like the eight different rides where they start and stop. How many?

Josh: 43:48

miles. Nice, yeah, we can publish them, and then we'll put. We'll put links in the show notes when we publish this episode.

Randy Ford: 43:53

So just look down in the show notes and perfect, we'll show randy's thing yeah, those are pretty popular because there's, you know they're eight miles to 30 miles and you can one of the men's in uh along uh, hollywood barrio, along grande avenue, where there's a million mexican restaurants, oh yeah that's super good okay so two, two more mountain bike trails.

Josh: 44:12

Okay, the first is, uh, totally to preserve. Yep, yeah, so actually this is kind of like now, way up northwest, right at the loop in avra valley road, so it's, it's kind of like, I think, almost to the end, because you, because it's because your, your, your, your numbering system starts far out west one, two, three, so this is number three. It's less than five miles to get to the west side of Tortolita Preserve. And the interesting thing with Tortolita Preserve is if you cut through that neighborhood back there you can get back up to Ridgeline and.

Dane: 44:43

Wild Borough and that actually will then cut over back to. Honeybee as well. Yes, yeah, you may die, just so you know.

Josh: 44:53

It is nasty back there. That's the trail you keep trying to take me on. Are you trying to kill me?

Dane: 44:57

we go the other way. So we at least are going downhill. So you're dying downhill, okay, another fun fact about that area.

Randy Ford: 45:03

Yeah, my son had a close friend who worked for the department of natural resources. He said when you're up in the tortellina mountains, you're never more than five minutes from a mountain lion. Yeah, it is remote. What's crazy is.

Dane: 45:17

I've driven the four by four back there to kind of prospect and look around and in the middle of nowhere there'd be some double wide trailer that somebody yanked out there and tried to live in and it's all full of bullet holes now, but it's out there in the middle of nowhere. I'm like, how do they even do? I can barely get my forerunner out there.

Josh: 45:32

I don't know if I've talked about this in the podcast yet. Maybe I have, I think. I think you and I talked about it. But I'm no longer scared of the mountain lions because I saw the Jaguar. Okay, once I saw the Mexican J and and and and so I saw it in. My buddy was with me, he didn't see it, I saw it. I'm like that was not a mountain lion, whatever. That was like. Three days later someone else saw something. In like a week later someone else saw something and then on January 8th they posted that they had, they had caught a Jaguar on a game cam in Southern Arizona. Again, I was like I told you guys, yep, so yeah, the mountain lines are fine. Yep, yeah, they don't bother you, for at least at least they haven't bothered anyone in Tucson since I've been here.

Dane: 46:12

No, I've got a buddy who was coming down a trail on Mount lemon, omar, shout out to Omar. Uh, him and his brother were coming down, uh, general Hitchcock, so green mountain trail, okay and they were in the drainage, coming out near in front of them and they're yelling and throwing rocks and eventually it sulked away a little disappointed, but they got out of there. But that is— that's the only engagement. I've heard.

Dane: 46:41

He told me that and man, I don't think the hair on the back of my neck stopped being up Just to put things in perspective mountain lion sightings are very rare.

Randy Ford: 46:50

Yes, yes, yes.

Dane: 46:52

This is more on Mount Lemmon and way up there, but it's pretty rare. I've seen one in my yard.

Randy Ford: 46:59

I've had one in my yard in the valley too.

Dane: 47:00

Yeah, so they're out there but they really don't want to deal with anyone. The stuff that I really don't want to, Just looking for cats and little dogs.

Josh: 47:08

Oh, big time, yeah, watch your dogs.

Dane: 47:09

Yeah, if I had to tell a visitor to our area to the Southwest, the worst thing that they're going to have to deal with is cactus. Yeah, honestly, that is the most aggressive Jumping chollas, oh yeah.

Dane: 47:24

If you're going to be stalked and assaulted by anything, it's going to be a cactus and they say that they don't move. But I don't believe them because they're in me. I swear. I've been on a trail, I've gotten off, I've never tucked a cactus, touched a cactus on the trail and I'll get off and feel my leg and their spines in there and I know that they're coming out and reaching out for me. I know it.

Josh: 47:50

So I got one more mountain. I have to include it.

Randy Ford: 47:52

Okay.

Josh: 47:53

So at Valencia oh, look at the time, we got the time. This is on page 20 in your book the loop in Valencia. You can actually take Valencia East and then turn right on Camino Loma Alta and in eight miles you can get to the Vail Vortex trails. And what this does is opens you up to the Arizona Trail, which means that you can go all the way to Mexico, oh yeah, If you wanted to. Or you can go all the way to Utah if you wanted to.

Josh: 48:20

So crazy Eight miles and you can get all the way to Mexico.

Randy Ford: 48:24

The key thing is if I wanted to, yeah.

Josh: 48:26

If you wanted to. Let me get back with you. Yeah, and not only that. From that trail system you can get, you know again to the Arizona Trail, but you can also get to the McKenzie. And actually Lacey and I just did that the other day. We were testing out the e-bike to see like how long the battery would last. We rode from my house to McKenzie Trails and rode McKenzie and rode back.

Dane: 48:43

Yeah, yeah, and you go up over.

Josh: 48:49

Yeah, you go past Colossal Cave and then a lot of people kind of take it all the way to Gabe Z and then they take the road up. But we actually found some double track that will bring you in the back side and you're not on any major roads at all the whole time. Oh, I want to know where that's at. So McKenzie.

Dane: 49:02

I'll show you.

Josh: 49:03

If you used Strava, you would know.

Dane: 49:05

No Strava, no Strava I end up being. Do you have you heard the term straw asshole? That's a real term.

Randy Ford: 49:12

No, but I have no trouble visualizing what that is. It doesn't need any explanation.

Dane: 49:16

No, I just end up getting focused on my time, I start leaving my friends behind. I start being a jerk, you know, and I just I had to give it up. I don't mind the data, but honestly, I want to ride with my friends and have fun. So, uh, my, I have plenty of friends that don't have that vice and can control themselves. I can't.

Randy Ford: 49:33

Yeah, I stay with the free version, and it has almost no features, except I can. I can let my wife know where I'm riding.

Josh: 49:39

Yeah, I do, the beacon too, that's part of it, cause we ride a lot by ourselves. And so let my wife know and I Like, okay, you okay, you haven't moved in like 30 minutes, are you okay? I was like no, I ran into Mike Mucker and we're having a conversation Exactly.

Randy Ford: 49:54

Well, you can see I'm a Dunkin' Donuts, so I'm probably okay, all right, randy.

Josh: 50:00

So I want to talk to Jesus for a couple minutes about Ride, if that's okay with you oh sure, awesome.

Josh: 50:08

So Jesus joined us. Yes, what if that's okay with you? Oh, sure, awesome. So Jesus joined us. Yes, what's up guys? How are you doing? Maybe turn that mic down so it faces you a little bit. There we go, there we go. Yeah, awesome, I'll turn you up a little bit. Thank you, so we had you on. I can't remember what episode. Do you remember what episode? The number? No, you ride Tucson. What you're doing? You're in a different location then, so I thought maybe you could, since we're in your beautiful location that we're all underdressed for here.

Josh: 50:33

I thought maybe you could share with us a little bit about your new location and what your vision is for this place.

Jesus: 50:38

Okay, so we're not that far from the initial location. We're like a little more to the west side of Costco. We used to be in the east side of Costco. The area is called Old Farm, executive Streets, I think, and same thing. We still have an access, not taking any major streets to the loop, using our parking lot.

Jesus: 50:57

So what's great about talking mountain biking is that we do rent mountain bikes hardtail mountain bikes and our riders are more like they're beginner riders. They just come from out of town to ride a little bit on the desert to see cactus and birds and things like that. So, uh, our mountain bike rental has been so popular because we can send them to two different trails. You can hit from the shop which is fantasy island, where we talk about that one, and urban assault trail for the ones who want to have like a little more like fun ride pizza and beer, which we use, the hop shop, and child pizza, yeah, um, and so we're really grateful to have this location. We've been working on details and here and there, um, and we're same concept. We just try to build community. We want to bring people from out of town to know tucson as a cycling mecca. You know, mountain biking, road biking, yeah, gravel everything e-biking. So we do still rent regular bikes, e-bikes, and we're going to have more e-mountain bikes than that.

Josh: 51:55

Yeah in the future coming up. That's awesome. Yeah, okay, I also so. So I stopped by. What was it? Last week? I was on my week before or whatever. I was on my. I was on a loop ride and I stopped by and he was already closed. But I swung up as they were closing the doors. I'm'm like, hey, can I peek my head in? And he said yeah, but he sent me home with some jerky.

Dane: 52:11

No, yeah. I heard about this jerky, am I going to get to try this? Well, yeah, so here's the thing.

Josh: 52:16

He sent me home with some free jerky, okay, and I brought a whole bunch of money Because I'm leaving with some paid jerky but, you gave me the spicy stuff and I gotta tell you I've never had and it's. There's like three ingredients chiltepin, salt and beef. I think yeah yeah, it's only three ingredients. So tell me a little bit about your jerky, like what you're doing with that.

Jesus: 52:39

It was amazing we produced this in mexico. It's, um, it's a small ranch. Uh, it's super clean, like the. The old fashioned cows go out four, 30 in the morning, come back at sunrise, sunset, sorry, yeah. And then we sun, sun dry for 48 hours, and then we mesquite, grill, and then we add salt the spicy one and the natural, just salt and then we pack it. No, it's a grass fed cow. Yeah, and we, it's a company that we own called provisions ac. We have an instagram account and we've been selling this to people that travel on the arizona trail back and forth. Uh, it's a good source of protein, it's vegan.

Jesus: 53:19

Right, it's totally vegan it's just one removed, it's organic my food eats salad, so I eat.

Dane: 53:32

I am what I eat or what I don't know great part about the desert southwest.

Randy Ford: 53:36

When the cow just stands there in the field, it becomes jerky. Yes, you can skip right to the end of the process it's really tasty, we don't.

Jesus: 53:44

We don't call it like beef jerky, we call it more like steak, like sun-dried steak oh because you can chop it, put it in the saucepan and make tacos out of it.

Josh: 53:53

Oh wow, um yeah, it's thicker juicy it's thicker and juicier and it's not like you're, not, like it's not killing my jaw it was. I was like what the hell you don't?

Jesus: 54:01

really fight to eat it. It's just kind of like it's a little bit tender. Um, the beef regular beef jerky uh or at least the mex Mexican beef jerky is like super thin. You dry it for like three, four days so you can actually crush it and make powder out of it. But this is not what we do. We just leave it like tender and juicy. So it's really good and we have it here in the shop.

Josh: 54:22

That's super cool and drooling a little bit. So how can people get it? Can they order it online, or is it.

Jesus: 54:25

No, Well, yeah, I can order it. We have it online. Normally, people order it through the shop, or they can go to Provisioned AZ on the Instagram account Okay cool. Or in the RightTucsonAZcom website, and they can order it there too, yeah it was funny.

Josh: 54:40

So I was riding back and it's like 10 miles or whatever back to my car and Jesus was like all right, when you get home, you got to have it with a beer, it'll be good.

Randy Ford: 54:47

He never made it home, no chance.

Josh: 54:48

He did not make it to the car he didn't make it to the car Out of the parking lot it's gone. I was eating it as I was riding my bike because I hadn't eaten lunch that day and I was hungry and I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. So then I almost crashed my bike at one point because I was trying to get it picture of the empty bag. I'm like it didn't even make it to the car.

Randy Ford: 55:10

It didn't make it home.

Jesus: 55:14

Just my kind of nutrition.

Josh: 55:15

It was perfect.

Jesus: 55:15

And we do have wholesale. So if we, if Guru Bikes, want to keep it there for your rider.

Dane: 55:20

I definitely need a sample.

Jesus: 55:23

Oh yeah, for sure, but like this is my, when I ride a 50 year trail, there's this lookout like a flat, you know, like the flat thing, yeah, where everybody stops on the slick rock, yeah, some people like to do other stuff. Some people like to have a quick snack. Open a bag, get it. If you carry a beer in your backpack, just drink it. It's really good and it hits a spot.

Josh: 55:45

Yeah, definitely yeah. So I had the spicy one and it was spicy, but not like kick your ass spicy, it was like a good amount of spice, and then I imagine the other ones just salt.

Jesus: 55:56

just salt and beef.

Dane: 55:57

It's awesome All three of you guys will have some.

Jesus: 56:02

I'm buying some.

Randy Ford: 56:06

No more free for me, I brought cash too, so this is going to get ugly.

Josh: 56:12

Randy and I are going to be fighting over your beef jerky stash on the way home.

Randy Ford: 56:16

Keep them on the podcast for just a minute longer.

Dane: 56:20

Turner's a connoisseur of beef. Oh yeah, every time we go on a road trip, every gas station, every place we go, he's like can I get some more beef jerky? He won't get the pepper, like if it's spicy.

Josh: 56:32

so I definitely want the spicy, because then he can't have okay, so then I don't have to share and I resonate with your comment that you don't call it jerky, because it's really not jerky, it's like it's.

Jesus: 56:42

You said it's like a dried steak yeah, normally like, uh, people dry it on this oven like a dryer or whatever. We just hang it in mexico, like my cousin owns that ranch. That's what I know that way so they just hang it on there for two days and then bring it back grilled mesquite and just pack it in a vacuum seal and that's it.

Dane: 57:00

That's one of my main foods when I do low carb. Yeah, for the trail is stuff like that, because you know, I'm not trying not to have sugars, I'm trying not to have carbohydrates and and uh, I'll, I'll have jerky, I'll have cheese, you know yeah, from wisconsin I need to go there just to get some more cheese well, I'm a closet kitchen jerky connoisseur, I've got a, I've got a nine tray dehydrator, oh, and I have a jerky gun.

Randy Ford: 57:27

And if you've ever seen, what's a jerky gun?

Josh: 57:29

I don't even know what that is.

Randy Ford: 57:32

See, you had no idea what you were about to learn today.

Josh: 57:34

I didn't.

Randy Ford: 57:35

I didn't not at all. So think of a big caulking gun with a wide nozzle and you fill it with ground beef or ground pork or whatever you want to make your jerky out of, or a mix, oh wow. And then dry it and it's like. It's almost like, is this?

Dane: 57:54

like a slim jim.

Randy Ford: 57:55

It's jerky.

Dane: 57:55

No, no, no it's like jerky bacon oh, okay, see, so can you put jerky and bacon things out like.

Josh: 58:02

Could you spell out mountain dog?

Randy Ford: 58:04

oh, yeah that would be amazing. I suppose you could if you wanted to, oh that's awesome, yeah it's, uh, it's a pretty amazing way to make some of that stuff and I have friends that you know that we do an elk beef blend for them in the fall. Oh yeah, and yeah, it's some pretty amazing stuff and you can put anything you want in it for spices teriyaki, um, jalapeno, anything you want.

Josh: 58:27

I never thought about making like like dehydrating ground ground meat before. Yeah, it's perfect.

Randy Ford: 58:31

I make it out of ground. Turkey believe it or not. Super, super, I do a 50, 50 mix with ground Turkey and beef and it tastes just like jerky, but it's, you know, it's got the, it's got the Turkey, sort of a bit of an offset for the, for the beef thing.

Dane: 58:45

So that's, you know, something I like to say a lot is a turkey jerky. I just like to say that.

Josh: 58:51

I do. I just it's on a, on a PR or something like that. Is it yeah?

Dane: 58:55

I don't even know. I just like to say turkey jerky. Like I would run around, I would ride the loop and just say that to myself as I'm riding.

Randy Ford: 59:03

Just like a mantra, yeah. You could switch it up and go jerky turkey yeah, there you go, so, and it's kind of the direction you're going, yeah yeah yeah, you should have twerky in there too.

Josh: 59:15

Twerking jerky, twerky jerky turkey turkey twerky. Turkey jerky yeah, there we go that's.

Dane: 59:21

You know, that's like the sea cells sally sells, she sells yeah, so I can't do that yeah yeah but twerky jerky.

Randy Ford: 59:28

Yeah, twerky turkey jerky yeah, somebody do that, she sells seashells thing and at the end they said that's a terrible place to try to sell.

Dane: 59:34

I know they're everywhere.

Randy Ford: 59:36

They're on the ground.

Dane: 59:36

Yeah, just walk her. I would tell Sally she's going to starve.

Josh: 59:40

Oh my God, you're like way off.

Dane: 59:43

Sally can pound, but we have turkey jerky.

Josh: 59:47

Jesus, thank you so much for hosting us in your amazing new place here. Really appreciate it. Randy, thanks for coming and talking with us about your book. The Loop, america's number one recreational trail.

Dane: 59:57

Everybody needs to go out and get one of these. You can get it Even if you don't live in Tucson, because it'll make you want to come here. Yeah, get one.

Josh: 1:00:03

If you're coming here, for sure get one. I will. Any questions let us know at mountaincog at gmailcom. Randy, do you have any final thoughts for us?

Randy Ford: 1:00:09

Yeah, I have a contact email address on the back of the book and I've gotten dozens of comments from people who have come here and ridden. The mapping software that I had to use doesn't do the small street names very well and I'm kind of working trying to find an alternative to that. But that was the only complaint people have had. You know, the major streets are pretty easy to find and it's functional, but I am working on fixing that.

Randy Ford: 1:00:34

So you're working on version two. I am working on version two. I think it's going to be the loop and more, because there's about a hundred miles of shared use trail. That isn't the loop connected to the loop, and then there's also, as we're talking today, I get I've gotten a lot of feedback and questions about how do I get to mountain biking trails, and this is going to be a section in the in the next book is we'd be glad to consult for you.

Josh: 1:00:58

I need free consultation. Counting on it, we only always charge is uh jerky, yeah, exactly just spell it out mountain cod, hey. And that in that email is like is it okay if I publish the email? So it's the, it's the loop guidebook at yahoocom, the loop guidebook at yahoocom. No spaces, no capitals, anything like that. Uh, that's how they can reach out to you. You can get the book on amazoncom, uh, or Amazon, anything else you want to share with them.

Randy Ford: 1:01:23

I just appreciate the chance to uh kind of cut it up a little bit with you guys.

Josh: 1:01:27

Oh yeah, have some fun and share some information. Thanks, right on, man. All right, thanks a lot, take care guys.

Randy Ford: 1:01:38

Thank you guys, this is way too much Painless. Thank you guys, it's awesome. Yeah, so we.