It’s a little strange to hear a former El Tour de Tucson winner — and the captain and sponsor of the winning team every year since 2017 — say that he’d actually prefer not to win it himself. But Rob Alvarez makes it clear: Winning the team title in El Tour is just as satisfying as winning individual accolades.
“When I won in 2017, people were so happy, and in 2018, when (teammate David Salomon) won, people were like, ‘Aw, man, what went wrong?’” Alvarez said. “It was like, dude, my teammate won. What do you mean what happened? When the Raiders score a touchdown, it’s not like, ‘Joe, why didn’t you score the touchdown?’ It’s the same thing with cycling. A team win is a team win.”
And with Team Stone House, there have been a lot of wins.
Alvarez and Salomon in 2017 and ’18, Ulysses Castillo in 2019, and Gerardo Ulloa last year. All wearing the Stone House jersey. Not to mention Paul Thomas, who won the tandem event in 2021 and returns to the fold this year, joined by Alvarez, who was not initially planning on riding in Saturday’s race.
Alvarez, an avid local cyclist and El Tour sponsor who runs the Stone House Group, a local office of Keller Williams Realty, hasn’t been putting in the hours on the bike to which he’s accustomed. He was more than happy to put together a contending team while sitting this year out. He and Thomas went on a tandem ride last week, Alvarez said, “and it was a lot of fun. So, it was just like, let’s do it.”
“Friends and family, everyone who knows me, always asks, ‘Are you going to do El Tour?’” Alvarez added. “And having finally won it, that was really special. We try to go for it every year, and it just so happens we have someone who wins it. This year was kind of put together a little weird at the last minute.
“Last year, with a new organization running it, it was done really well but it was definitely different. It’s such a special event, especially being a local rider and a local businessman — all of it makes it personal to me. It’s nothing to prove to anyone other than ourselves. It’s just a special event to win.”
Tucson's Rob Alvarez says that not enough people consider cycling a team sport. "When the Raiders score a touchdown, it’s not like, 'Joe, why didn’t you score the touchdown?'," he says. "It’s the same thing with cycling. A team win is a team win."
Alvarez’s win in 2017 helped him establish the Stone House team as a top contender, and he’s been able to pair with a pro racing team in Mexico, which has provided regular racers and top talent. Last year, Ulloa — a top Mexican mountain biker and road racer — bested second-place finisher Josh Rinderknecht by a margin of 0.4 seconds and third-place Johnny Corcoran by a margin of 0.6 seconds.
Alvarez was a bit further back, finishing 40th overall, though he contends that he was no less satisfied than when he won it himself a half-decade ago.
Even with several team wins under his belt, Alvarez learned a new level of teamwork last year.
“A guy gave me his wheel!” Alvarez said!
Stone House teammate Jose Worley saw Alvarez getting a flat tire, pulled to the side with him, plucked his wheel off his bike and gave it to Alvarez to finish up the race.
When Alvarez talks about teamwork, this is what he means.
“All sacrifice, no money, just for the team to do well,” he said. “Someone who sees the results, that guy didn’t even finish it. But they don’t know what goes into it. He was top 10 the year before, drove 10 hours from Mexico just to compete, I get a flat tire, so he took his wheel off and I put it on, so I could continue riding. And then his race was done.”
This year, in addition to the previous champions, Team Stone House will also be joined by Irish pro racer Cormac McGeough, Ethan Overson and Kyle Van Renterghem. Overson joined the squad just this week.
“This thing has brought us together as friends,” Alvarez said. “It’s all different backgrounds, it doesn’t matter, all doing it together for a common goal. That’s special too. It’s not about money, it’s about doing well and pushing ourselves. I think I can speak for any of those guys, when you win, it’s not like, yeah I beat all you guys. It’s like, finally, like you’ve beat yourself. You don’t wake up and luckily win El Tour. It takes years of getting everything right.”
The 38th annual El Tour de Tucson had nearly 6,500 participants, with two international cyclists winning top spots.
Mexico's Gerardo Ulloa was the first to cross the finish line following Saturday's 102-mile bicycle race and Cuba's Marlies Mejías had the fastest time among female cyclists. Video by Jesse Tellez/Arizona Daily Star.
