The Daily Toreador - Student Newspaper of Texas Tech

Issue date: 9/15/08 Section: La Vida

Media Credit: Ruben Castillo

A whistle on a rooftop started a mass of bicyclists on a 10-mile journey through Lubbock's Tech Terrace neighborhood Saturday.

Tour de Tech Terrace, a Texas Tech tradition, brought nearly 500 cyclists to the corner of 30th Street and Hartford Avenue, the first of 10 stops at 10 backyards along the 10-mile route. At each stop, participants opened up their backyards for the group to stop and socialize along the route.

The biannual event, which started in 2004, has no entry fee. Each cyclist is asked to bring three canned goods for charity. In the past, the food has been donated to the South Plains Food Bank. This year the canned goods will be donated to victims of Hurricane Ike.

Friends Jake Schwierking and Ethan Minshew, both from Georgetown, organize and run the event together, but they are not the founders of the tour.

"I was the roommate of the guy who started it," Schwierking said, "He asked me if I wanted to start it and I said, 'No, that's a horrible idea. We're going to get in trouble.'"

Today, tour founder Aaron Blom, a Tech alumnus who graduated with an industrial engineering degree in 2006, said he can hardly believe how much the event has grown.

"It started with 30 people," he said, "and I worried then that that many people would get us into trouble. It's nice when it's low-key. It would be nice if it were 50 people riding in a thunderstorm, but the more the merrier."

The tour is not a race, and brings both new and experienced bicycle riders together for a leisurely ride.

Gina Tramel, a junior human sciences major from Fort Worth who rode in Saturday's tour seemed eager to explain to anyone new to the tour that it is not a race.

"It's kind of like school," she said. "As long as you finish, who cares."

Blom has been back to every tour since he graduated. However, he's not the only Tech graduate who travels back to Lubbock for this event.

Trevor Best and Chad McGee are both Tech graduates who have attended almost every tour. For Best, living in Midland could not keep him from touring on Saturday.

"I like the people," Best said, "Everyone's so nice and courteous."

McGee returned to Lubbock from Dallas to attend what he called the greatest event Lubbock has to offer.

The tour is not just open to students either.

Rex Housour was born and raised in Lubbock, but is not a Tech student. After he saw a mention of the tour online, he decided to try it out. Saturday was his second tour.

Continued...

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