So Saturday morning found me in Tulsa’s Tour de Cure, a benefit ride sponsored by the Tulsa Bicycle Club. They have five rides varying in length between eight and 101 miles. This is a ride rather than a race. So there is no competition or awards or any of that. I’ve run literally dozens of runs but this was only my second ride. There starting gun. Everybody is just standing around talking and then they start going.

Today’s ride was a ride of left turns in traffic starting right away. At least the first one we had traffic control with the police. The rest of them we were on our own.

So we cruised down Southwest Boulevard (aka Route 66) for a bit, taking up both lanes.

And then turned right over the railroad tracks and got on Avery Drive heading west past the refineries, trash to energy plants, oilfield fabrication shops. Avery Drive is a popular ride for bicyclists which is great but some of them get run off the road or hit every few years but angry or distracted people. My prayer was just to survive it.

No worries though. The motorists were courteous and gave us lots of room. So I’ll live to ride it another day. My problem is that I ride almost exclusively trails on my own. Roads make me nervous.

I got stressed when Avery drive ended and we had to do two left turns to negotiate the very busy high 97 and 51 intersections. No choice but to get in the left turn lane and ignore the freight truck behind me, twice.

So after all that we got to a rest stop. Time to get something to drink and a snack and rest a little bit. That’s me, the fat guy with the white over blue shirt or jersey.

And here is my old bike. You don’t see too many hybrid bikes on rides like this. Or bikes with rear view mirrors and a bell. Don’t you laugh at me!!

And then back to it and we ended up winding our way through downtown Sand Springs. I was able to keep a few riders in front of me and they seemed to know the route because I didn’t see any obvious course markings or signs or anything.

And we ended up on the Katy Trail that went most of the way back to Tulsa. No more city streets except the last mile or so.

The end is pretty low key. Since they don’t time or have awards, you just end your ride. Get something to eat and drink and go home.

I really enjoyed myself. Thank you to the sponsors, and organizers, and the army of volunteers who make these things happen.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday