Galindo rides on: For the love of a brother & Tohono O’odham Community College

Where would Julio Galindo be without his family – and that’s his immediate family and his cycling one, too.

Likely, not where he is now – enjoying his life with the their comfort and love in addition to supporting to help  make the Tohono O’odham Community College non-profit be a success during the 43^rd El Tour de Tucson.

It’s been a long road – literally – given there have been many roads for Galindo and his cycling friends, who are joining him from for the ride, mostly from the University of Illinois. All these years later – 34, in fact – they’ll reunite for a fun ride and great memories. He’s solicited nearly 10 very good cyclists to join him in El Tour (more later)

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How did he get here? Galindo, 56, started cycling as a youngster.

“I’ve always enjoyed cycling, even living all over the country, in cold weather states as well,” he said. “But being back in Tucson since 2005, it has been easy getting on a bicycle as this is such a bike-friendly community. I keep riding not only because it is generally good exercise, but in some part, to remember my 11-year-old brother, Fabian, who passed away while riding a ’10-speed bike’ just two weeks prior to my starting my freshman year in college.”

That memory – and his love for his brother – will have him motivated on El Tour day. Surely, his buddies will be there, too. And, not surprisingly, they are high-quality riders.

“Well, not sure I have ‘big names’ coming in to ride for TOCC for El Tour, even though they were all Category 1 cyclists (and therefore in 1992 automatically qualified for the Olympic Road Race Trials),” he said.

“But, for me, these collegiate cyclists (teammates/roommates) of mine from Champaign/Urbana, IL, were my ‘band of brothers’ who kept me from dropping out of college ultimately. To this day, they may not realize this, but riding and training with them for three years, kept me motivated to not only stay in school but to do my best to keep up with them, so that I also provided good results in my own (lower-level) racing.”

Still, it was “cathartic” for him and his brothers. And a bond that held them together in their late teen years and early 20s.

Now, they will be in El Tour, a vehicle to raise money for Tohono O’odham Community College, where he is the Director of Communication & College Advancement. He knows the power of the ride, given he’s ridden in it three or four times, he said.

“El Tour holds a special place for me overall in now being at Tohono O’odham Community College (TOCC) and getting their students to get inspired to ride (and maybe race) bicycles as a life-long healthy pursuit,” he said. “I was the 2nd President of the IBRC in 1990 (to 1992), and so the month prior to coming to Tucson for the first time in March of 1992, I put on the Inaugural ‘1992 Illini Collegiate Criterium.’ As as a side bar, when I created the Barrio Logan College Institute in June of 1996 in San Diego, in May of 1997 I was the co-founder of the ‘Barrio Logan Grand Prix,’ which next year celebrates its 30th year.”

At the end of the day, he wants to help raise money for the TOCC athletes now “and in the years to come, but my overall goal is to get Tohono O’odham youth into healthy lifestyles, and I think bicycling is a great avenue for that sort of lifelong endeavor. And who knows, the L.A. Olympics are just around the corner – what if the next Greg LeMond (or female version) is in our midst on the Tohono O’odham Nation!? That which took my 11-year-old brother’s life, actually saved mine.”

Galindo has long inspired to dream. He continues that today, given his lofty ambitions.

“I hope to bring awareness of our overall efforts at TOCC as most do not know we even exist, in the greater Tucson area,” he said. “My goal is to create the ‘Tohono O’odham Collegiate Cycling Club’ or the TOCCC OR TOC3, so that we have students competing not only on the road and/or on mountain bikes, but also take advantage of our great new velodrome as well.”