2026 Rouleur Week EOP 100k

Ride Report

February 11, 2026

Mike gives preride brief to a HUGE crowd!

Welcome to the main event, Arizona's first Rouleur Week. Five official rides to qualify for the Randonneurs USA Rouleur Award, and even a couple of bonus rides on President's day! Mike Sturgill, Arizona RBA, put in countless hours designing the routes and getting the new azrandos.com website up and running. He even loaded it with goodies including daily contests and photo galleries. There were 35+ riders at each event, about 4x the normal turnout for winter brevets here in Phoenix.

Gentle readers of this blog know that yours truly prerode the 200k and 150k events last week. Here is my report on the first event of the week; the End of Pavement (EOP) 100k. Stay tuned for upcoming reports on the North Valley 125k and the 120k Dart Team Event!

Lets get going!

Leading out the group

Mike completed the preride brief noting we had riders from 10 states in attendance for the event. It was a Wednesday and the first turn out of the start was a left turn onto busy Union Hills Blvd. No one seemed ready to move, and some shouted, 'let one the Arizona guys lead us out!' With Mike blocking traffic, somewhat reminiscent of crossing a street in Saigon, I led us out as one big bunch.

Traffic stop

We stayed together through several traffic lights and started the event at a nice easy pace. You're welcome!  A couple of the riders accused me of trying to rig the first contest (guess the average time that all riders reach the EOP) since my guess assumed a slower pace. Hey there were RUSA socks on offer for the contest!

Starting to spread out

Once we cleared the morning traffic, the fast movers took off as I continued at my own pace up the gentle climb toward the EOP. There are some steep rollers the last few miles, but soon the EOP sign appeared in the distance, and with it the first of many well stocked control stops we would have during the week!

EOP, Mike and Penny

Mike and Cindy foster future service dogs, and Penny was present at all the controls and was quite interested in greeting the incoming riders. Only one rule says Mike; ' no people food, she is in training to be a service dog!'

When I arrived about a third of the field was already there. With no real time pressure, and a chance to catch up with rando friends from around the country, I ended up staying until the nearly the last of the riders appeared, and most had left.

Not many photos on the way back. I caught Paul from Colorado in the rollers and got on his wheel. He picked up the pace until we nearly caught Vern, also from Colorado. We closed the gap together and the three of us traded fast pulls on the return. We passed a bunch of riders and somewhere along the way we picked up Doug from Illinois and the four of us rolled in to the finish 4 hours and 20 minutes after we started!

What a great way to start the week. The only downside for me; Chris won the socks for the closest guess to the average time to the control!

Go home and get some rest, tomorrow we ride the West Valley 125k.

Steve Atkins

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