Tucson cycling clubs/teams

[russianbear]

Moving to Tucson in about a month or so. I will be looking to join a team, want to race again in 2015. I'm a cat 3, so looking for a team that's cat 2/3 heavy. Anyone have any info? I was looking on USA cycling and there are a ton of teams registered in Tucson it looks like.

[weekapaugin]

http://www.azcycling.com/clubs is where you want to go, and the home site of ABRA, which will have the race calendars and such. Choosing a club in AZ might also depend on the type(s) of racing you plan to do, and the crowd you plan to hang with. Our calendar is pretty office park crit heavy, with a majority of the crits taking place in the Phoenix area, so we don't always see the Tucson boys for those. The good news if you plan to focus more on road racing is that most of the road races are in the Tucson area.

My personal perception or interpretation of the teams I believe to be more Tucson based is:
Agress - mainly see them at road races, mostly master's age racers, but some strong 3s, nice guys - terrible Metallica/flame inspired kit design

GST - a lot of master's racers again, the guys I've met have been nice, see them at rr and crits.

Prestezza - not sure if they exist as a racing team anymore - I think they are the ones that put on Colossal Cave RR though which is a fun rr.

Sabino has had some strong 1-2-3 riders that past couple of seasons, I'd say the team is a younger average age than say GST or Agress.

Summit usually has a good mix of 3s, 4s and master's racers.

Team O2 modern fitness usually have a fair number of 3s and 4s, and a few 2s.

Tolero had a strong 1/2 squad last year.

Again, these are my quick summaries based on who I usually see at the races I do (3s). Unfortunately, the AZ race scene as a whole has been on the decline with fewer and fewer racers. With that said, Tucson seems to be doing better than Phoenix in that regard. Tucson has the shootout on Saturday mornings, which is their hard group ride - might be a good idea to hit that up and see where you fit in. Hope that helps.

[kulivontot]

Look up race results on usacycling.com and it'll give you an idea for who's competing cat 2/3.
Check Tucson bicycle classic, valley of the sun, colossal cave road race, and el presidio classic for some of the major races.

[520 Dan]

Come to town, do the group rides, see who you get to know and join the team full of people you like that you want to work with.

There are a lot of teams, but people seem to gravitate based on social circle and age. Also, there are a lot of riders in town but a lot of the 30 strong late 20's early 30s riders have left town recently.

[russianbear]

Thanks for the recommends. Doing group rides is definitely my priority as far as figuring out where to join, just wanted to start doing some homework.

It's good to hear Tucson has its share of road races, as that's more my jam.

[Zoose]

Thanks weekapaugin, I've been trying to get into racing too and those team summaries help a lot.

To russianbear, I know some of the people on Aggress and can say most are great people and riders but I wouldn't want to join because of their president. He is quite the character and you can go into almost any of the local road bike shops and the people working there won't have good things to say about him.

[kac]

Check in with Fairwheel Bikes when you arrive in Tucson. If it's there...they'll know. Plus, they have an amazing array of exotica.