As mentioned briefly in my December Recap, we spend the Christmas holiday cycling in Tucson, Arizona. We knew we wanted to cycle which meant jetting off to warmer weather – I’ll take that!
Lodging & Lessons Learned
We booked an Airbnb close to Historic 4th Street and Downtown without doing much research, and, if I did it again, I’d do more research to figure out the best place to stay AND cycle. What we didn’t realize is that Tucson is very spread out and the city covers LOTS of miles in between mountain ranges. This may not have been a problem if we weren’t car free and biking everywhere but we ended up spending more time biking out to the beautiful spots than biking among the beautiful spots. This meant biking through crappy parts of town, hoping every car was paying attention and not on their phones so we would not be hit, and hoping the endless stoplights would stay green (which, lucky for us, they did for the most part!). Okay – this sounds too negative because we had a lovely time! Hopefully, these points above (and below) will help everyone considering biking in Tucson in the future. Here’s what we did!
Day 1 – The Loop
After walking to the Food Conspiracy Co-op for groceries and making a breakfast, we took a Lyft up to Oro Valley to pick up our bike rentals from Tucson Bike Rentals. Bike rentals are tricky; they are few and far between and most don’t have have high-end road bikes that we wanted. Therefore, a quick google search took me to Tucson Bike Rentals and we booked early as we were told the Christmas week books up quickly. The kicker was; 1) the bikes were located 30 minutes for our Airbnb, and 2) there wasn’t a bike shop to fit us correctly and/or swap any part easily. Not the biggest deal but we both could have benefited from a mechanic looking things over; a smaller bike for me and smaller helmets for both – live and learn!
What initially drew us to Tucson was their 130 mile separated, paved bike trail called “The Loop” and we hopped on two short miles after getting our bikes! It was lovely! It was smooth, wide, and safe! We loved being outside biking again and enjoyed the sunshine! We biked ~20 miles back to our Airbnb for lunch.
We biked down the rest of Historic 4th Street and through downtown before taking the Golf Links Aviation Path southwest to explore. I wouldn’t recommend this path as it was rough, is located by the highway and tracks, and not that enjoyable. We cut up and eventually biked through the University of Arizona campus which is probably my favorite 2 block stretch in Tucson!
In non-touristy cities dining on Christmas can be tricky; we were left we very few hotels options. Luckily, we had a lovely meal at outside at The Coronet.
Day 2 – Mount Lemmon
Our gift to each other was the attempt to conquer Mount Lemmon! We bike 16 miles across town to the base of Mount Lemmon and began our journey. The vertical climb is legit and like nothing I’ve experienced before. We were instantly in our lowest gear and going between 6-8 mph. Oh, and it was hot! We dressed in layers due to the colder temperatures as we climbed but it was much hotter than we were expected and I was sweating the entire way. We called it quits at mile 8 (instead of our goal of 14) and turned around for ride down. The 25 minute ride down was amazing and scary at the same time! It was like being on a roller coaster for 25 straight minutes. The wind was howling so loud behind me – I didn’t even hear the cars behind me which was probably a good thing!
We dined at Cup Cafe inside the Hotel Congress and learned how to play cribbage that evening 🙂
Day 3 – Saguaro National Park East
Day 3 meant the first time I’d even cycled three days in a row; I was a little nervous to see how my butt would hold up but day 3 on the butt was actually better than day 2. We bike another 16 miles across town to the southwest corner and met up with Matt Broshat (aka Biker Broschat) to ride through Saguaro National Park. The park has an amazing 8 mile loop that we explored together; stopped several times to get cool pictures. We did see a few cyclists whizzing by and using it as an official training ride but not us.
We met up with Biker Broshat at Crooked Tooth Brewing Co. to learn all about his “Biking the Perimeter of the US” trip in which he 9,000 miles in (*only* 2,000 left) – so cool and jealous of his experience! We grabbed tacos at BOCA Tacos and Tequila right before it closed!
Day 4 – Returning to The Loop
We took a lovely ride back up to Oro Valley to drop off our bike late morning on day 4 – soaking in the last outdoor riding we’ll have for a while. As I mentioned briefly above, my butt still felt better on day 4 on day 2 which is a good thing considering I need to have it ready to ride 4-5 days consecutively in France in July! We stopped for a quick lunch at Magpies Gourmet Pizza as we’d eaten all of the food we purchased at the co-op!
We had a lovely dinner at Cafe Poca Cosa to celebrate our last night in Tucson!
Day 5 – Sabino Canyon Recreation Area
We rented a car for a day to get us to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area and hold our luggage as our flight didn’t leave until 8pm and we had a exit our Airbnb at 11am. We hiked the 8.6 miles around trip to Seven Falls taking in the scenery, sunshine, and relaxation of our last day on vacation. Our favorite part was the five different water crossings we crossed both out and back.
Have you vacationed in Tucson? What is your favorite destination to cycle?
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