Komoot Arizona Women's Rally Pt. 4: The Final Days
- Carolyne Whelan
- Feb 24, 2025
- 5 min read
In the morning, riding out from the valley of the lake parking lot, the air bit. I put on all my layers to stay warm, and the cold sleep and start to the day made for an achy body as we rode out. I lagged up the long, slithering cut of road that climbed, descended, then climbed again. At the first peak, I stopped to take in the view and admire my friends in front of me. I kept a modest pace down the narrow road of sand and rocks, happy to continue taking in the view and appreciating the ride versus hoping to survive it. As the road whipped me to the second portion of the climb, I could hear cheers behind and afront from the friends now watching me as I made it to the false peak. I stopped to take some photos, only to see there was still some climb to go. I was starting to warm up but didn't want to delay further to shed layers, knowing it would be cold on the eventual descent anyway.
My Kryptonite is assuming others' intentions with limited information. The defenses against such weaponry are so simple — don't over think, keep the brain clean (meditate), ask questions with an open heart. Hah! When I finally stopped to remove my pants and jacket, Lael approached. I hadn't had much time to talk with her, and made assumptions about how she had heard all sorts of terrible lies about me through my former employer with whom she is also associated and kept my distance out of respect for the lore. Turns out, she was just busy. We rode together for a while, catching up and sharing backstory. When the climb kicked up again and the conversation had run its course, Lael took off with seemingly no effort and I was left in awe and appreciation. Riding bikes next to a more legitimate super hero is like getting to swim with a whale or dolphin. Really, she is more of a Great Blue Heron, long and graceful and deceptively powerful. Just like that, she was up and over the hill like a bird cresting the horizon. Like Wonder Woman.
I rejoined the pack and we rode into Arivaca, a cute little village with lots of art and community spirit. The election was still raw and Arizona, like my adopted home state, is red. It was heartening to ride into a tiny town full of Harley bikers and see older women with long hair with strips of purple, art galleries and painted fences, rainbow flags in the windows of the mercantile. — As an aside, as I write this I am at a coffee shop in Hamilton, Montana, in between volunteer shifts and the local paper's Opinion section is out next to me, full of letters showing dismay for the turn of events whether they voted for Trump or not. — We charged our devices, called loved ones, waited seemingly hours for burritos.
In the long wait, I got to finally sit in community with some of the cyclists I hadn't had a chance to talk with the whole event, due to differences in pacing and established pods, if there were such a thing. From there, with full bellies, we rode to a gas station for water and final snacks bar in the shape of a giant steer head, and from there it was a short ride up hill to the campsite, a dispersed and undeveloped plot of public land near the Kitt Peak National Observatory. The Komoot crew was already there with a truck bed full of cold beverages and snacks, camp fire ablaze. While we didn't go up to the Observatory (a few brave and strong riders did), I went for a walk along the dirt road to appreciate the full moon rising swiftly from behind the mountains. I needed a bathroom break and was careful to step in another's footsteps to not further disrupt the cryptobiotic soil. Years ago, living in a travel trailer with my ex-husband, we found ourselves in Tucson for a few months, working the Tucson Gem Show. I almost lost my lid on a woman complaining that the desert was a void where nothing lived. It is so wildly alive in ways we can't comprehend. There are whole worlds of species on such a different scale of size from us that we cannot comprehend one another. Occasionally, a boot crashes down, like an earthquake splitting the planet open. But hopefully it won't be my boot.
The final day was bittersweet like chocolate. It was almost all on pavement, and fairly flat, all the way back to Tucson. Once back in the land of strip malls and vehicular traffic, we stayed too long at the Safeway enjoying hot cocoa and a donut. We rode with a pack for a while, but diverted to visit Melinda's house of origin, where her parents lived when she was born. The ride back into Tucson and through the city seemed to take forever, the long, straight, flat chipseal a monotonous drag after a week of swerving curving dirt bliss. We took turns pulling, and for once, probably because my cycle was finally recalibrated, I felt truly strong.
We came across a father and daughter on road bikes who pulled up behind us at a light. We rode together to the bike path and discovered the daughter was training for Old Pueblo, a race that just took place this past weekend. The father said that Lael and Rue are his heroes and how his daughter wouldn't show it but was really excited to be riding with women from the Komoot Rally. In the words of my hero, Tina Belcher, we're not heroes, we put our bras on one boob at a time like everyone else.
The ride officially ended at the Mercado, a place I visited often during that winter I spent in Tucson for the Gem Show. Our former go-to places were closed, or sold out, or my tastes had changed. It was liberating, in a sense, to visit a place I had held in my head as a dream, and reshape it as a modern reality that tasted not as sweet but instead savory, more complex, with full courses. There was a table covered in small Polaroids we'd taken at the beginning of the ride. We shuffled through them like Tarot cards, passed them to one another like Valentines.
Eventually, it was time to head home. Melinda and I said goodbye to Kristen, who'd been a key connecting point in our sturdy triangle all week, and rode to Lael and Rue's house to get our bags and pack our bikes back up. It went together so much faster this time around, and I was so much sadder to do it, so less careful. The note from the Missoula TSA was still in the box — Thx, good luck! — and I folded it carefully into my wallet. My bike wasn't just caked in dust, it was impregnated with it. A thick layer or bright tan or red filled every crevice, each nook, every space between each spacer.
It took me another three weeks to unpack my bike and wash it. I love that Fargo. But it's magic is truly in the far places we go together, and sticking to the local streets feels like riding Falkor to the library. Sometimes, it just feels better to walk.
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