What happens when the plan actually makes it out of the group chat? The bike tour magic is out there and gently guiding you toward new friends IRL. In early February, a group of Asian cyclists came together for a four-day ride through the Sky Islands East Loop, finding new meaning and playful moments on a well-traveled route.
Words by Arya, Phil, and Beija. Photos by Conan, Emily, Beija, Pak, Cheshire, and Teo. See their adventure below…
It’s easy to get lost in the desert with its sweeping landscape and big open sky. It’s easy to find something we’ve lost out there, too. Chances are, most of our hearts have been hurting lately. We’re losing connection, and we’re looking for authenticity. How can we parse the massive amounts of bullshit around us? Eleven strangers found an answer in the Sonoran Desert.
It wasn’t luck that brought us together. It was movers and shakers. It was impetus and momentum. It started with the internet: the magical age of invisible threads woven loosely, tethering us to strangers. Arya first spoke of a desire for a tour rooted in kinship. Conan echoed the vision and, after a few conversations, Molly and Pak joined in with the idea unfolding naturally from connections that were already there. We started a group chat, a spiderweb of connections to other cyclist friends from this core group. The online chat over a few months turned into a solidified route, dates, and a box truck rental. It was a magic little melting pot of dreamers, spreadsheet wizards, gigglers, and chatterers. When you mix us all up, you get something utterly perfect: four days of Asian baddies ripping around southern Arizona on bikes.
We came from all over the country with varying degrees of knowing what we were getting into. Teo, Molly, Emily, Pak, Beija, Hannah, and Conan had many bike tours under their belts. Cheshire and Phil had none, though neither were strangers to leaping into the unknown. In fact, Phil had never touched a mountain bike. A roadie, new to gravel. “Why the fuck not?”
Together, we formed a strong group experienced in racing, route building, photography, filmmaking, wrenching, rabblerousing, and community organizing. Serena joined us on day two as a new dog mom and added to the buoyant energy that carried us through the Sky Islands.
Funny how faces grow to feel so familiar when we’ve never actually seen them in person. Do you believe in these magic tethers existing before we’ve made an in-person connection? Do they exist because “Daddy Genghis” is what ties us all together? Genetic, cultural, spiritual – whatever the links are, they’re enticingly magnetic.
“Do you all want to know more about this area? It’s a pretty special zone.”
Hannah is a botanist by trade with a clear fondness for Sonoran flora. They tell us about the headwaters where we were standing on, the Santa Cruz river, which flows freely into Mexico, makes a u-turn, and then runs all the way north to meet the Gila river. As if political borders and geological limitations mean nothing to these rebel rivers determined to be united.
This is the reason why we dreamed of a bike tour with all Asians, reaching for them like the Santa Cruz reaches for the Gila. Arya hadn’t been on a friend-filled bike tour since before COVID. Now there was space to process all the accumulated trauma of the last five years in the best way she knew how: a beautiful bike tour with like-minded people.
It was beautiful, but it wasn’t easy. Phil hit a rock and flew over his bars on the first day. Pak and Cheshire raced down to him and sat in silence, maybe because they didn’t know what to say or maybe they just didn’t want to freak him out. Still, their close proximity and silence felt like compassion radiating through. Phil felt held in support, “As if they each took on a part of my crash so it wouldn’t bury me.”
For the next 48 hours, he was filled with anxiety and fear, drowning in self-loathing, concerns about his safety, and worries about being a liability. However, the more he rode, the more support he felt. Unconditional support. “What kept me going was everyone else.” Teo helped conduct a physical exam. Arya checked in on a personal level. Conan handed out beef sticks. Pak and Cheshire gave gravel riding tips.
Stay loose. Look where you want to go. Trust that the bike will glide over the rocks. Phil applied these newly learned techniques and belted out celebratory shouts as he descended the chunkiest terrain.
Later, Phil approached his companions individually and shared his deep gratitude. Just knowing he wasn’t alone – that none of us were alone in this scary, beautiful, changing world; that we were riding together through collective heartbreak with resilience – was enough to keep us all going.
Phil was learning to read rocks. We were also learning to read the landscape, asking Hannah the names of plants as we rode through each new ecosystem. One morning, Arya hovered over Hannah’s sleeping bag cocoon, leaf in hand. As Hannah opened their eyes, Arya pounced.
“What’s this one?”
Not even a good morning.
“Oak,” they reply, graciously, eyes still blinking awake.
The riding was like that: interspersed with everything else until it was more life than ride. We learned about the plants and animals, the rivers and the land. Pak stopped to gaze out at the desert horizon and play his ocarina. Beija, refusing the indignity of bland backpacking food, bought a whole vacuum-sealed steak and cooked it at camp. (Beija also bought an entire package of hot dogs, which Cheshire and Hannah happily cooked and passed around.) Emily learned that avocado and hot Cheetos made a decent taco. We took breaks to play jegichagi and kendama, courtesy of the games Serena brought up on day two. We danced to Bad Bunny. Life kept filling in around the pedaling until the pedaling was just how we moved between moments.
At the top of a climb, Hannah shared that it’s unusual to have a grassland at this elevation. A single pronghorn stood far away in the waving blonde of a million grass strands. Arya, only one generation removed from life on the Tibetan Plateau, felt a faint heartbeat of Home and was suddenly happy, even as a few of us let out loud, cathartic screams to release the painful memories this land held.
In grief, we may find stagnancy. On two wheels, we may find movement that pulls us out of our collective slump. Sometimes, it’s in the pain cave. Sometimes, it’s in a probably-haunted doll we find at camp. Sometimes, it’s in shared favorite snacks. Sometimes, it’s crashing and letting someone sit with you in the silence that follows. Sometimes, it’s snoring together under the stars.
On the final day, just ten miles from the end, Phil crested a climb and careened into a loose, unforgiving descent. Mother Nature had saved the hardest bit for last. He hit a rock that launched him airborne over his bars, flying at full speed like Goku, before slamming shoulder-first into a boulder. A crack echoed through the canyon. Screams of pain followed. At the back of the group, he found himself alone and unable to ride.
When Arya realized she hadn’t seen Phil in a while, she backtracked up the trail where she found him mid-spiral. She became a stabilizing force, literally and metaphorically. She created a DIY arm sling made from Phil’s fanny pack. She gave him space to unload. Then she helped him gather himself for what came next: the long and slow walk out.
The group catalyzed immediately. Phil messaged the group chat – “I crashed hard” – and everyone sprung into action. Teo hopped on a call with Arya and shared their medic knowledge to double-check, scanning Phil’s body for injury. Conan raced back toward Phil, Arya, and Pak to help them hike out. The rest of the group beelined for the cars at the trailhead, making a plan to drive a vehicle up the trail as far as possible to meet Phil.
After half an hour of hiking, a caravan of eight Jeeps appeared like a scene from a movie. They loaded Phil and his bike, and drove the last few miles to the parking lot. We watched the caravan roll in, in equal parts relief and disbelief.
A sprained AC joint and elbow. Plus a fractured rib. By most measures, this was a bad trip. Phil didn’t see it that way. “It was full of fear, anxiety, and physical pain. But, perfectly enough, those are also requirements for growth. I left it all out on the trail – something I’m incredibly proud of, something I could have never done on my own.”
Nothing out here grows alone. They tell us the conditions they grow best in. The company they keep gives them identity, a deeper ecology rooted in shared environmental conditions. As gardeners re-remembering our relationship with the earth, we know that companion planting – like tomatoes with basil, beans with corn, cucumbers alongside nasturtiums – not only helps each other grow and control pests, but also improves the very soil in which they grow.
We came to the desert looking for something. We found it in movement. In discovering the names of things. In crashing and in supporting. Like rivers that refuse borders. Like plants that grow better together or a mycelial network that stabilizes the very earth beneath us.
“I thought that kind of love only comes from family,” Phil said. Maybe we just built one out here.