NOVEMBER 2005
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Vital SignsGo To: El Tour • New Activity BrewingEl Tourby Jason Bradley Miller
It is a massive event that PBAA President, Pima County Hall of Fame Inductee, and El Tour creator Richard DeBernardis compares to an Olympics. El Tour, composed of four rides of varying lengths (109 miles, 75 miles, 50 miles, and 33 miles) is best known for its grueling 109-mile event, which is the largest perimeter cycling event in the world and has attracted Olympic cyclists, Tour de France champions, and international stars. In addition to the serious cyclists, El Tour allures casual cyclists and families. Fathers and sons, husbands and wives, sisters, cousins, daughters, and friends ride together--many of them for charities like Tu Nidito Family & Child Services, the official charity of El Tour. This year, there will be an El Tour Downtown Fiesta, which runs from 10:00a.m. – 9:00p.m. and includes children’s activities to complement El Tour’s 4-mile kids fun ride and a mile ride. Puppet shows, jumping castles, face painting, arts & crafts will be on-hand for the kids and local brewery Nimbus and Michelob Ultra will sponsor beer gardens, making this a truly family-friendly festival. DeBernardis, a man who has held records in the Guinness Book of World Records for his perimeter rides (he once cycled around the globe and more recently climbed Japan’s highest mountain…12,388 foot Mt. Fuji) is still in phenomenal physical condition, but what is striking about DeBernardis--whom everyone calls Richard--is his generosity, which is seemingly boundless. One of the other engaging aspects of Richard is his mind, which is perpetually in motion. It’s always working, moving, and planning. It’s easy to visualize a large chain, small chain and set of gears fluidly rotating the ideas in his mind that become his dreams.
“The Tour itself, when you take in what is the cost of this tour, between donated and in-kind items…$800,000 to $900,000 and in-kind support ranging from bananas to fruit, to commercial air time donated to us…that’s another $500,000,” DeBernardis says. “It adds up to basically a $1.3 to $1.4 million cost for this tour. But it’s a national event. That’s what you pay for national events. The county contributes $30,000, the city $21,000…that’s $51,000. My police bill alone is $65,000. There are not enough police in Pima County to take care of this ride. You see, we have growth issues too. But they’re issues. Issues are there to be resolved.” “I don’t know how he juggles so many balls and so many people,” Tu Nidito executive director Liz McCusker says. “He’s an incredible person with a huge heart and I think that’s one thing that this community doesn’t recognize about Richard DeBernardis or PBAA is what they give back to this community. Not just for Tu Nidito, but for many, many organizations. When there’s money left over and somebody comes to him with a need, he’ll fund it. And he doesn’t promote himself. He does this for the love of cycling.” And for the love of people in need. In 1983, the first El Tour raised $4,500 for the American Diabetes Association. Last year, El Tour raised $3 million for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, $208,000 for Tu Nidito Children & Family Services, $3,000 for Parkinson’s. DeBernardis expects each of these records to be broken this year, with projected totals of $4 million for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, $225,000 for Tu Nidito, and about $20,000 for Parkinson’s. “This is the 9th consecutive year that Tu Nidito that has been a beneficiary of El Tour,” McCusker says. “They gave us seed monies in the beginning and they have accounted for more than half of our revenues for many years. And now represent over $200,000 of our revenues. Which enabled Tu Nidito to really grow…going from 4 families a year to helping 678 families. We could not have done it without the name awareness and the exposure that El Tour gives us, which has been incredible. It’s actually been a miracle.” If you ride in El Tour, you will notice kids standing on the side of the road throughout the course holding signs. These are Tu Nidito Kids. They’re fighting. They’re winning. They’re there to show their thanks for the cyclists who are riding for them. To reciprocate the love for the cyclists who are riding to raise money for medicine and research. “It brings more of a relevance to the Tour,” DeBernardis says. “Why we’re doing this event when people see the kids out there and when you see the signs. This mile is for Sidney Clanagan, who passed on and while she was here she worked with Tu Nidito. We want to keep Sidney in our memory. It’s not just for us to keep ourselves healthy or for us to raise money. It’s for these kids. Tu Nidito is a unique organization. One thing is that with the development of medicine, is that our kids that were terminally ill are becoming better and are living. It’s working.” As in life, there are obstacles that the El Tour course itself faces. There is a steep incline on Freeman Road that punishes cyclists some 30 miles into the ride. There are two river washes that must be crossed: the Santa Cruz River wash and the Sabino Creek River wash. The weather is a completely unpredictable variable. “A week before, I start worrying,” DeBernardis says. “If the weather is going to rain, we have to build bridges. This creates issues. When do you build the bridge? A week before? The night before? Bridges take a day to build. When you have the bridges it creates other issues. It will take each cyclist 30 minutes to go through Sabino Creek Wash. When you don’t have a bridge, it will take each cyclist 10 minutes to go through. It means last-minute changes on the route. Let’s say if the Santa Cruz River was running. (laughing) You’re not going to send 7,000 people through the Santa Cruz River crossing if the water is 5 feet high. No matter what kind of bridge we build, there’s not going to be a bridge that’s big enough. We’d have to get a huge construction company here. We would have to add a mile to the course. All these little interesting twists that create more work or other dilemmas that we have to resolve. And I’m ready for it.” As long as he has enough time, he’s ready for it. Time… it cannot be stopped. Cyclists race against it and often conquer it. But the victories are fleeting. Ultimately, time always triumphs. It always catches up to the top athletes, claiming at first a fraction of a second and eventually robbing the fastest of a full second or a step. Some people waste it. Davis Phinney, an Olympian, World Champion, and the winningest bicycle racer in American history--is racing against it. A man who retired from cycling in 1990 after vanquishing thousands of foes on racecourses all around the globe with his powerful legs and acclaimed sprints, is racing against the clock. This time, his life is at stake. Davis Phinney has Parkinson’s Disease. A neurological disease that affects motor skills and movements, for which there is no cure, Parkinson’s poses the most daunting challenge Phinney has faced. He has started the Davis Phinney Foundation (DPF) to raise awareness and funds for Parkinson’s research efforts. www.davisphinneyfoundation.com/. “He is an absolute supernova of inspiration and energy,” DPF Spokesperson Karen Wilke says. “He is absolutely committed and focused with his mission statement of the Davis Phinney Foundation and he truly, truly fundamentally believes in absolutely everything that he does and everything that he stands for.” Indeed, Phinney is steadfast in his belief that the fight against Parkinson’s is winnable.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) belongs to a group of conditions called motor system disorders, which are the result of the loss of dopamine-producing cells. The four primary symptoms of PD are tremor, or trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face; rigidity, or stiffness of the limbs and trunk; bradykinesia, or slowness of movement; and postural instability, or impaired balance and coordination. As these symptoms become more pronounced, patients may have difficulty walking, talking or completing other simple tasks. (Source: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/parkinsons_disease/parkinsons_disease.htm) Phinney is left-handed, and as is often the case with Parkinson’s, his dominant side is primarily affected. This makes many tasks challenging for him. Fortunately for Davis, he is blessed to have a wonderful family who supports him in everything he does. His wife Connie Carpenter is a famous cyclist herself, having won the gold medal at the ’84 Olympic games—but her role as a supporter has been key for her husband. He has two children who also help him, his 15-year old son Taylor and his 11-year old daughter Kelsey. “Without my family, I would be toast,” Phinney says. “Especially my wife Connie is an incredible caregiver. She’s taken on a lot of the responsibilities that I once had to take care of the family. I like being with them. I like how they help me out. I like how they look out for me. When we’re in public situations and I’m starting to shake and what not, my daughter will reach out and hold my hand. It’s simple things like that. And that support is just so crucial to any Parkinson’s person to not just hide away in their house. You want to be able to get out and be outside and connect with people, but it’s not that easy to do it by yourself. If you got a little team thing going and certainly, my family is a big part of my team, then you know, I’m able to go out and about and do things in public.” Phinney will be riding the 35 mile ride at El Tour. At one time, the man was capable of cycling at speeds above 40 miles per hour for 100 miles at a clip. A former Olympian, Phinney won bronze at the 1984 Olympic games, has won stages at the Tour de France, stakes races all over the world, and dominated the Pyrenees Mountains. A man who has achieved successes that only a select few could ever hope to reach, it is ironic that Phinney’s greatest accomplishments in his cycling career may pale in significance to his new role as the leader of a new peloton, in which he is a beacon of hope in the fight against Parkinson’s Disease. “I am gonna take up the pace and set a pace and pick up more and more members in the peloton that I can create,” Phinney says. “I’ve learned a tremendous amount by Lance Armstong’s example and what he is able to do. I don’t command such a large stage as Lance does, but it is my responsibility to develop whatever stage I can create and use it as a forum to do what you say…which is to try to spearhead more awareness, more support, more motivation for finding curative solutions to Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders.” DeBernardis likes to use a metaphor comparing the workers of El Tour to spokes on a wheel. “One spoke breaks, the wheel stops going,” he says. “The wheel has never stopped going.” Davis Phinney will not stop going. He believes that he will overcome. As a high school student who aspired to become a cyclist, Phinney was discouraged by his history teacher, who told him that he’d never make it. Davis Phinney not only made it, but he became one of the most successful American cyclist in history. And he still pedals today. The fact that he still gets on his bike every day is testament to the strength of a man who has no thoughts about quitting. He refuses to acknowledge limitations that were foisted upon him. He has been a success in everything that he’s set out to do. His wife Connie Carpenter credits her husband’s coaching for helping her win the gold medal in the 1984 games. He is a devoted husband and a loving father. He excelled as a corporate spokesperson and a broadcaster. Indeed, everything that Davis Phinney sets his mind out to do, he does it. Having decided to attack Parkinson’s, do you think that he’s going to be denied? By sheer determination of his will, Phinney pedals onward--against time, up a steep hill without a face. Parkinson’s has wrapped itself around his body, but he refuses to yield. After all, it’s his body. It’s his life. The man is still in phenomenal shape. For Phinney, failure is not an option. “It’s like climbing a hill in the Tour de France,” Phinney says. “You’ve just got to decide you’re going to get to the top of the hill. The whole analogy with bike racing is explaining what the time limit means in an event like the Tour de France. If you don’t finish a stage in the race under the time limit, then you’re eliminated form the race. And that’s what keeps the Tour competitive. So the focus for everyone is to just make the time limit on the really hard stages. When I was racing in the tour, I was a sprinter and I didn’t climb at the level of the great climbers, so in the mountain stages I was always up against the time limit. I was never put out on time in the Tour de France and I’m not going to get put out on time in the much more severe time limit that’s imposed on me now with Parkinson’s.” “I’m in a race, I’ve got a time limit and I’m going to do everything I can to make it inside the limit,” Phinney says. “Elimination is not an option.” “He is just a succession of achievements time after time after time,” Wilke says. “It’s remarkable what he has achieved and he has so much more that he has goaled for himself and for the foundation…that he’s set for himself as goals. These are goals for himself and the foundation and he’s completely committed to seeing it through.” That commitment involves spreading the word about Parkinson’s and sharing the benefits of exercising to local communities. “What the Davis Phinney Foundation does, is we’ll go into an area, like Arizona, for example, and identify a need down there,” Phinney says. “And maybe it isn’t just curative research. You know, maybe it’s wellness, support for the Parkinson’s community in other ways down there. If we can, we will link with El Tour de Tucson to stay in Arizona. Our specialty is focusing on coming into an area, and promoting health, wellness, cycling, and curing Parkinson’s and having the money stay in the community.”
To that end, DPF has partnered with the Arizona Chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association. Dr. Becky Farley, a neuroscientist at the University of Arizona who conducts research focusing on the benefits of exercise for people with Parkinson’s says, “Some doctors will say, here’s your prescription. Take your medicine. Physicians don’t always let people know that organizations are out there,” Farley says. “There is really solid evidence that shows that exercise works.” Farley, a cyclist herself, will be doing a flag ride on Wednesday, November 9th, just 3 days before El Tour, in which she will ride the entire 109 mile course on a tandem bicycle. She will ride with five or six different individuals who have Parkinson’s, with each of them pedaling approximately 20 miles. Working in concert with Cynthia Holmes, a health psychologist at the University of Arizona’s Department of Neurology with 13 years of experience focused solely on Parkinson’s, DPF is supporting Power over Parkinson’s. Phinney will host an indoor cycling coaching session exclusively for people with Parkinson’s. This event is one of the centerpieces of the new INDOOR El Tour event to be held at the El Tour Expo at the Tucson Convention Center on Thursday, November 11th, at 11am. Davis Phinney will be the keynote speaker at the Wellness Conference at the TCC on Wednesday, November 10th. For information on how to register to ride with Power over Parkinson’s, or for information about the Wellness Conference go to their website: www.azapda.org or call them at 520-326-5400. “Parkinson’s has no cure and people do die of it eventually and inevitably,” Phinney says. “It’s important to “Every Victory Counts” (a motto of DPF) is really symbolic to me as to how you approach your daily life and how you view your day as successful or unsuccessful …I approach wellness and attitude with the same vigor and responsibility as I approach curative research. I am out there showing people that yeah, I’m compromised but I’m doing what I can and it’s not just to make an impression on you, it’s for me. I want to enjoy my life…and I want other people to take that on as well.” Parkinson’s is a disease that afflicts more than 1 million Americans today. It’s debilitating. It is merciless. It has latched onto Davis Phinney. But Davis Phinney refuses to yield. He wakes up every day and wills himself to get up, to get moving, and to live life. He climbs onto the saddle of his bike and he rides. He rides for himself. He rides for his family. But he also rides for everyone with Parkinson’s. It’s his greatest challenge, his greatest race. He’s leading a peloton that includes people with Parkinson’s, doctors, scientists, philanthropists, and legislators who ride toward a finish line that is the cure for the disease. He lives for the day when he will cross that line triumphantly, arms extended toward the Heavens. He’s been there so many times before that it’s easy to imagine this happening. A New Downtown Attraction is Brewingby D.A. Barber
“We have hundreds of people coming here (to the existing Nimbus location at 44th Street and Dodge) each day and we’re in the middle of nowhere,” says Counts. Last month, Counts had publicly expressed frustration with the city over the project and was worried whether officials were serious about supporting the project. “The question was asked ‘have you ever been in a microbrewery in Denver or Portland’ and their answer was no, and oftentimes they don’t really understand the impact of what this type of business can do for a downtown area to assist development,” says Counts.
The draw for Denver, and other downtown areas is the brewpub: a restaurant that produces less than 15,000 barrels of beer a year and serves food as well as hand-crafted brews. In most cases, the brewpub does not bottle the beer, so it can only be tasted fresh, directly from the keg. If the brewpub does bottle the beer, then technically it becomes a “microbrewery,” of which there are nearly a dozen in the Denver area. According to the National Brewers Association, such “craft beer” production from the nation’s 1,334 micro, specialty breweries and brewpubs was up 7.1% for first half of 2005. The Association estimates that the specialty beer industry does $3.7 billion in annual sales. Nimbus locating in Downtown Tucson would bring much the same status since it is the most awarded brewery in the Southwest, according to Counts. But the project that Counts envisions is more than just a brewpub. The initial Nimbus plan downtown was for a mixed-use project that included a brewery, restaurant, performance area, gallery space, commercial retail space and a 61-unit condominium complex, with the possibility of “affordable housing.” But the City asked him to scale back that vision to a two-phase project that begins with a brewery and restaurant. Counts estimates the brewery and restaurant project will cost close to $6 million, but until the City provides information on the site’s environmental, archeological and zoning status, the total project cost is only a guess. “The more we delay the project, the more it’s going to cost,” says Counts. If something unexpected comes up, such as the site being declared a “brownfield,” the delay could continue while the City cleans up the site, according to Counts. Counts is currently working on a new business plan, expected to be completed in the next three months. If all goes well, the architect drawings will be completed by May and ground could be broken by July. Counts says that it should be about 14 months after that when Rio Nuevo will have a microbrewery and restaurant. For now, the project will be a second location rather than a relocation of the south-side microbrewery established in 1996. Because the brewing equipment cannot be transferred, new equipment would need to be purchased, and the quote for new equipment rings in at $1.7 million. When the first phase of the project is completed – the microbrewery and restaurant – the project would create some 130 new jobs, according to Counts. It the condo phase happens, another 30 jobs will be added to that count. And while the microbrewery is considered a real draw for Downtown, the restaurant aspect of the project alone should be an instant success, since the current restaurant at Nimbus near Alvernon and Barraza-Aviation Parkway is already a popular eatery in Tucson, according to Counts. Ultimately, Counts hopes to bring in a 10,000 square-foot specialty grocery store, which would likely be very popular in the Downtown community. |
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very autumn cyclists from around the world converge upon Tucson for El Tour de Tucson, a signature event that has generated millions of dollars in revenue for the City of Tucson, additional millions for local and national charities, and helped Tucson earn its reputation as one of America’s best cycling locales. In its 23rd year, El Tour has flourished, growing from 200 participants in 1983 to an expected 7,000+ cyclists this year. 
In a sport that is obsessed with time--with splits, intervals, limits, and records--it is fitting that the Perimeter Bicycling Association of America (PBAA)--the organization that produces El Tour--is working feverishly to finalize logistical details, register cyclists, and make the necessary arrangements to ensure that the event will come off successfully on Saturday, November 19th. There are always last-minute preparations and an influx of eleventh-hour registrations that swell the ranks of El Tour cyclists.
He can recite dollar figures and numbers of cyclists from past El Tours with ease and is cognizant of every detail that must be handled in order to make the event a success. With a staff consisting of 12 full-time employees, 20 part-time workers, and some 2,000 volunteers, he has excellent support. But he also knows precisely what each of his employees and volunteers should be doing. He is adroit at getting people to buy in to his vision. It’s probably easy for him because he believes it and this belief is transparent to anyone who interacts with him. This enthusiasm is infectious and has allowed him to partner with successful businesses, like Charter Funding, the title sponsor of El Tour and Diamond Ventures, the presenting sponsor. There are scores of other businesses that have latched on: Metro Restaurants, Intuit, Wild Oats, Sunkist, Pepsi, and Michelob Ultra, to name a few.
he Tucson City Council voted unanimously last month to work with Jim Counts to develop a new Nimbus Brewery at the northwest corner of Stone Avenue and Franklin Street as a new “downtown destination.” The plan, from an independent developer of the state’s largest microbrewery, has developed as the first major commercial development proposal for Downtown in several years. The Council authorized staff to negotiate exclusively with Nimbus for the site for a period of 90 days. 
Denver is a good example. Not only is the Mile High City home to the world’s largest single brewery, but it also has the nation’s largest brewpub, the highest number of home brewers and is host to the Great American Beer Festival, the brewing industry’s most prestigious event of the year -- the “Super Bowl” of beer, according to the Denver Convention and Visitors Bureau. Denver’s current mayor, in fact, became well-known locally as a pioneer businessman in Downtown Denver’s LoDo section, an area that became revitalized partly because of the Wynkoop Brewing Company.©2002-2008 Downtown Tucson Partnership