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The “Shootout”

In Tucson, Arizona there is a bicycle ride that leaves, every Saturday, from the University of Arizona. This ride, for the 30+ years I’ve been riding it, has been a weekly, slugfest, no holds barred, rebel, unsanctioned, bike race.

In the early 1980’s I first heard Frank Tallarico call the ride “The Shootout” like the OK Corral Shootout in Tombstone back when. The name has stuck ever since. There couldn’t be a better descriptive word to use.

People, who have never raced a sanctioned race and never will, come out on the “Shootout” with guns blazing. Local pros and pros from around the world, as they pass through Tucson, do the “Shootout”: guys from Australia, Canada, Germany, everywhere.

Oldsters in the terminal throws of the disease of life throw down their last fatal attack before getting sawed off the back. Only to come back to life and form the “The Old Guys Shootout” that leaves 10 minutes early on the same route to try to hold the young guys off. It’s a diabolic twist to a handicap race. The oldsters are mostly a 50+ bunch.

The route is always the same and it’s about 60 miles long. Roughly midway is the sprint hill and it’s a worthy pitch. If you win there you get to crow and brag until the next week. Toward the end there’s a flat run into town with another flat sprint with the same bragging rights. We used to have a winner’s jersey for a couple of years until it became so tattered nobody wanted to wear it.

I’ve been to track events in the Midwest and when people find out I’m from Tucson they’ll often ask about the “Shootout”. Folks come to Tucson from anywhere USA and the only ride they’ll do is the “Shootout”. I’ve been on it with 3 guys, 28 degrees and snowing. I’ve seen 200+ riders and 90 degrees at 6:30 AM. As far as I know no one has ever been killed on the “Shootout”: bad injuries, hit-and-run, but no deaths, except of pride and ego. As a speculation I could say 100 riders, on average, every Saturday over the last 30 years is 156,000 riders times 60 miles is 9,360,000. That’s nine million three hundred sixty thousand miles. Nobody died. Pretty good.

Norm Kibble