ALONG THE WAY

HONORING HUBE In a 1921 Tucson-to-Phoenix bike race, cyclist Hube Yates finished the ride (without the benefit of paved roads) in 8 hours, 50 minutes and 45 seconds. He crossed the finish line in downtown Phoenix more than an hour before the second-place rider. COURTESY OF THE YATES FAMILY The World According to Hube

Legendary Cyclist Eschewed Hubris

THEY ARRIVE EACH YEAR with all the predictability of migratory birds. Colorful, sleek with their travels, they fly like the wind. However, this human flock never gets but a few feet off the ground. They are forever tied to the Earth by gravity and two skinny wheels. They come to Tucson by the thousands to take part in El Tour de Tucson, the 109-mile bicycle race held every November. And Tucson welcomes them. Tucson likes bicyclists-it's been named as one of most bicyclist-friendly cities in the nation. However, there are times when some Tucsonans question that hospitality, especially on the day of the race. I've been there, 10 car lengths from an intersection, waiting for the seemingly endless stream of riders to pass. One needs a soothing mantra at times like that-a few quiet words to replace the yells you feel like throwing at the officers of the law who are intent on holding back all who would travel by car. Maybe something like: Bicycling is a good clean sport. Ommmmmm. Bicyclists are good, clean folk. Ommmmmm. Bicycle races are. . . You get the meditative drift.

Recently, I have found a new mantra, one that involves Hubert “Hube”-as in tube-Yates. Now, there's a name for the record books. He, too, rode a bike. On May 1, 1921, Hube, 17 years old, joined together with 15 other Arizonans in one of those odd events Arizonans have a tendency to create. Something to do with the sun, I suppose.

At 5 A.M. they waited in downtown Tucson for the pistol shot that would start the longest bicycle race in their piece of Arizona history. They would ride from Tucson to Phoenix, approximately 140 miles. I suppose all Lance Armstrong wannabes would agree that the length of the race had a worthy ring to it. But, given relatively good roads and a minimal number of homicidal automobile drivers, nothing a pro couldn't handle.

Whoa, pedal pushers. Did I say anything about a road? No, no road for Hube and the boys. The best they got for all but a few miles was a washboard gravel path. Decades later an old Arizona hand described the path as “so rough it was littered with nuts and bolts that had shaken off the cars.” The racers could also opt to ride in wagon-trail ruts or go for the 4-inchdeep desert dust.

The challenge of the nonroads was matched by the weather. The day dawned hot-as might be expected at the beginning of summer in southern Arizona. The temperatures would be in the 90s all the way to Phoenix. And these riders didn't have any cute holders for their water bottles or cunning little pockets for their Power Bars.

They did have one very big canteen. Working under the theory that canteens wrapped in material stay relatively cool, Hube wrapped himself accordingly, in layers of clothes. “I dressed for the North Pole,” Hube wrote 50 years later about his attire and his race. There he went, the human canteen riding like the wind across the Sonoran Desert. Okay, maybe more like a good stiff breeze, but the man moved. Even with a stop for lunch in Florence, Hube made it to downtown Phoenix in 8 hours, 50 minutes and 45 seconds. The riders placing second and third were more than an hour behind. And the others? Nobody else showed up at the finish line. As Hube recalled, a few went, frankly, bug nuts.

“Some of them lost their minds,” he wrote. “Someone had to go get them and take them to the hospital.” Must have been the sun. Hube, who died in 1980, went on to a good, full life, a few more races, work as a cowboy, a dude wrangler. He raised a family and is remembered by his son, also Hube, as a loving father.

“He was a strong man,” he says of his dad. Ah, yes. In telling this story, I take a risk. Somebody, one of those brightly decaled riders up there in my intersection, protected by men and women in uniform, may decide to go for Hube's record. They may, the whole flock of them, try to cross the desert in Hube's tracks.

I say this: Go for it, pedal pushers, but my money will be on Hube. As for my new mantra, I give it to you with my hope that your heart and your drumming fingers may be stilled in whatever line you sit, at whatever intersection you wait. It goes like this: Hube, Hube, Hube Yates Hurrah... Hurrah... Hurrah...

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