Riding a bicycle was a regular activity for Armando “Mondo” Requejo as a youngster in Montecito. He pedaled uphill to school at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and had an afternoon newspaper route. Football and track were his consuming sports at Santa Barbara High, where he was a running back and sprinter.
It was not until he was 33, in 1997, that Requejo discovered his passion for cycling. He joined the Tailwinds club in Santa Maria and rapidly moved up to higher categories in racing. “I had a lot of fun,” he said. “The sport of racing is an intense rush, wheel-to-wheel and elbow-to-elbow at 30 miles per hour. It’s a great sport all the way around.”
Twenty years later, Requejo has an important role in the staging of America’s most prestigious cycling event, the Amgen Tour of California (ATOC). As chair of Santa Barbara’s Local Organizing Committee (LOC), he oversees the operational necessities to assure that the race goes off smoothly and safely on roads in the city and county jurisdiction.