Tour de Scottsdale

Anthony Milazzo knows the benefits of cycling given he’s an emergency room doctor. He’s seen enough in the health world to know that it’s important to stay fit and healthy.

“Unfortunately, our society has an epidemic of inactivity,” said Milazzo, 40. “As an ER doctor, I get to see the negative downstream of that on a daily basis, whether it’s diabetes, hypertension or weight management. Cycling provides an avenue – a fun avenue – to have a positive impact on all of it.”

He’s been a cyclist for nine years and has loved every minute of it, first starting as a mountain bike cyclist (he still is) and adding road cycling to the mix.

Aleigha & Anthony 

The transition was simple enough. His sister-in-law asked if he’d be interested in riding in El Tour de Tucson for her team last year. He said yes and, well, here he is – riding in Saturday’s HonorHealth Tour de Scottsdale.

When he first started riding, he didn’t even own a road bike, eventually borrowing a bike from a friend and spending a month and a half riding to get ready.

“I got hooked,” he said.

He purchased a road bike the next week.

Now, a few months later, he’ll be riding in the Tour de Scottsdale.

“As soon as I found out about the Tour de Scottsdale, I decided to sign up,” he said.

He’ll be riding in the 62-mile event.

His goals, of course, are to make platinum, finishing in less than three hours. In El Tour he wanted to finish in less than five hours (102 miles) and he just missed, going 5:05.

“It was more motivating than a letdown,” he said.

Now, he’s ready to take on Scottsdale and his biggest concern is the heat, given the unseasonable temps here in late March. It should be good conditions given the ride is in the morning.

“And there’s the climbing,” he said.

He does expect to have fun, though. He’ll be riding with – kind of – with his wife, Aleigha, who will be riding in her first road cycling event. She’ll be in the 32-mile event.

Maybe this event will convince him he’s a road cyclist rather than a mountain bike cyclist?

“I’m pretty much both,” he said, chuckling. “I enjoy road cycling, but I’ve realized the endurance part of it through road cycling opposed to mountain cycling. That’s like a high-intensity, high-interval training type of sport. Whereas you not only have that high-intensity effort but there’s also a big endurance component to it”

What he found was that when he’s on the road, “it’s made me a better mountain biker. It’s doing one to benefit the other.”

So, in preparation for this week’s ride he’s been doing both mountain cycling and road cycling. And that won’t stop in as much as he has cycling events coming up, whether it be a mountain bike event or a road bike event.

“I can’t wait,” he said.