“The Tour of the Gila isn’t a race to me. It’s almost a way of life,” says Dermot Kealy, a master’s bike racer from Ireland.

A former BMX rider, he has competed in road cycling across Europe and started also getting his USA Cycling license after his brother Paul moved to Arizona. “I’m not a pro or anything but I’ve done a lot of racing,” he explains. “Something about that race drew me in.”

Although he’s lost track of when he first raced Tour of the Gila, Dermot guesses it was at least a decade ago during a visit to see Paul, who’s now also a multi-time competitor at Tour of the Gila. “I think I did the five-day race and got my arse kicked,” Dermot recalls. “On one of the days, I stopped for a pee and just couldn’t get back on.”

Returning many times, Dermot has gained more fitness and learned enough to be “a wee bit more competitive” with each Tour of the Gila. He got on the podium in 2014, sprinting for a one-second bonus in the Mimbres Valley without even realizing he was in podium contention. “I was blown away and started to think I could win this. I completely changed my mindset,” he remembers.

While he lives and works in London, Dermot uses much of his annual leave to race—marking Tour of the Gila in his so-called diary and making the trip whenever he can. “It’s only a day on the plane,” he explains.

Having missed the past couple years for various reasons, Dermot is now training for the 2025 edition of Tour of the Gila and eager to ride up to Mogollon again. “The Tour of the Gila is what keeps me motivated all through winter,” Dermot says.

In fact, he spent one winter training in what the Irish call “a toilet.” Between houses and staying with relatives, a bathroom was the only room with space enough to set up his indoor trainer. To prepare for the spring race, he’d awake at 6:30 a.m. and do intervals before work. “That’s what it meant to me,” he says. “Tour of the Gila has helped through personal struggles. It’s a lot more to me than four or five days out I the desert.”

The longest way round is the shortest way home

To Dermot, Silver City feels like home. “I’ve been in London 30 years I’ve never felt at home here,” Dermot says. “Even in America, Silver City is a place apart from anywhere else.”

He appreciates the southwest New Mexico community’s quirks and the diverse group of rural residents who work together to pull off the race annually. “If you were to look at it from the outside, you’d think there’s no freaking way this eccentric bunch of guys could do that,” he says. “The synchronicity is amazing.”

Dermot cites one example of how smoothly run the Tour of the Gila is: the speed at which the multi-time masters race winner has been given his prize money. “It’s not about the money,” he clarifies. “They have these ladies in the Buckhorn who have the checks written out when I’ve literally just come off the podium!”

Everywhere he goes in Silver City, Dermot says he meets somebody who has something to do with Tour of the Gila. “It’s the proper Wild West. You see an old guy rolling up in a pickup, and it’s got “cat 3” painted on it,” he says for example. “You see some guy with a dog in his motorcycle sidecar wearing glasses. It’s so normal in Silver City. If somebody was doing that in Tucson or New York, they’d be doing it because they’re trying to be eclectic.”

A friend’s eye is a good mirror

Ahead of the 2024 El Tour de Tucson, Dermot and Paul rode to the event expo. On the way, Dermot reminisced about how race director Jack Brennan seems to be everywhere, naming a couple examples like the time he was cheering for the field at the railroad crossing in Hanover and also somehow at the finish line when the racers arrived.

“That afternoon was the first time I took the leader’s jersey,” remembers Dermot who now claims about 15 red jerseys from Tour of the Gila. “I was sitting there in the Javalina Coffee Shop after the race, and Jack drove up with my leader’s jersey!”

He remains floored that, with the logistics of directing UCI races plus multiple amateur races, Jack would go out of his way like that for one athlete. “For me, that summed up Tour of the Gila.”

One year, Dermot remembers passing his arm warmers to a support car during the Inner Loop Road Race. At the following year’s race, Jack personally returned the arm warmers—printed with flames on them—to Dermot. “Tell me that’s not crazy. That’s Silver City, man!”

Even with these examples in mind, Dermot and Paul could only blink when they rolled into the Tucson Convention Center and saw none other than the Tour of the Gila race director himself at the expo entrance. “He’s a proper legend,” Dermot shakes his head. “There’s no one on this earth like Jack Brennan.”

Hearing how much Dermot adores him, Jack responds, “Well, I did kiss him!” Sitting next to his wife Nancy, Jack remembers celebrating the Irishman’s criterium win one year with an embrace and a brotherly smooch.

“Anytime I see him, he gives me a big hug,” Dermot confirms. “He’s genuinely happy to see you—none of that false bullshit you get on the east coast or London.”