26th El Tour de Tucson

The 26th El Tour de Tucson took place on 22 November 2008. El Tour is a fun ride attracting over 9,000 cyclists of all ages and abilities from throughout the United States and beyond, including novice, intermediate, advanced, and professional riders. Further enhancing the health and environmental benefits of cycling, this year’s event saw the introduction of a range of environmental measures.

The event is open to all ages and participants can choose to cycle 109, 80, 67 or 35 miles, as well as a 4-mile & 1/4- mile Kids & Family Fun Ride. Providing mechanical support, first aid and lots of encouragement, the ride features a dedicated team called the Bike Patrol, and from 2008 the event organizer, the Perimeter Bicycling Association of America, have included promoting environmental awareness as part of the patrol’s duties. These include;
1) Not littering
2) Using refillable sports water bottles instead of single-use water bottles
3) Using re-usable bags when shopping (NO Plastic Bags!!)
4) ALWAYS taking discards (1st aid wrappers, empty gel packs, etc) home for proper separation and disposal. Above all else, participants are asked to think of how to reduce waste and throwaways.

Other environmental measures include encouraging online registration to reduce the use of paper, and the widespread use of recycling bins on race day to collect recyclables. Throw away plastic goodie bags that had been used in previous years were replaced with reusable shopping bags and the event literature called on the participants to ‘think environment’.

The Ecoflag, a symbol of environmental awareness and action in sport, was flown at the start/finish line and Tatsuo Okada, Executive Director of NPO Global Sports Alliance (GSA)—the organization that originally developed the flag--was at each of the start lines. He commented,

“‘Fair play’ and ‘Ecoplay’, which includes greening our surroundings and reducing energy and material consumption, are both natural parts of sportsmanship. There are more than one billion sport enthusiasts worldwide, and if we can introduce these principles into our sporting and everyday lives, we will have created a major force for change.”

GSA USA President, Jane Poynter, was also at the event, and she received the El Tour Woman of the Year award for her contribution to promoting environmental awareness and action through sport.

Prior to the main event, an El Tour Bike, Fitness & Health Expo takes place each year at the Tucson Convention Center, and new environmental measures introduced this year included the vendors recycling their packaging and environmentally friendly bamboo bicycle frames going on display, which drew a lot of interest from the crowd.

For more information on the El Tour de Tucson, see the Perimeter Bicycles Association of America’s website at http://www.perimeterbicycling.com/

LINK :
Perimeter Bicycles Association of America