Our guide, Eric, steps off his bike, beckons us toward a tiny patch of shade and, before we sit down, stomps his feet hard on the ground in a wide circle, like some kind of angry dinosaur.
It looks like a haka, or a defensive wrestling combo, but it turns out he’s ridding our picnic area of any resting rattlesnakes. They feel the vibrations in the ground, so slither off before being troubled by human company… usually.
Welcome to riding MTBs, Tucson-style.
Imagine your dream city. Big enough to have, say, major sports events and concerts. Cuisine from all over the world, a financial sector, a hipster zone, a university, decent hospital and plenty of places to hang out.
Now imagine your dream riding spot.
All manner of trails, from rolling singletrack to brutally challenging descents, all within a short drive of each another, at a serious elevation, with a cycling scene that includes everyone from road pros to people who weld six BMXs together and ride them around dressed as clowns.
That’s what this place is – to me, anyway. I’ve been coming to Tucson to ride for four years and I’m not even close to being bored yet. There are hundreds of miles of epic gravel roads in all directions, day-long cross-country routes meandering through a bewildering array of cacti and rock formations, and, best of all, there’s Mount Lemmon.
This almost-2,800m elevation monster, just 50km from town, has an access road you can drive, climb or even run up if you want, which leads to a dizzying array of boulder-strewn, expertly built trails running off in all directions.
Going another way
On previous visits, I’ve tackled the classics of Bug Springs and Prison Camp, and absolutely loved Mount Lemmon – not just for the spiciness of its trails but for the way you can eat a great breakfast at the bottom, shuttle up and be back in downtown Tucson in a few hours.
But we’re not going that way today. Instead, we’re doing Red Ridge, which starts at the top of Lemmon and heads north-east, around the top of the city.
It’s a 29km ride, with 1,981m of descent, in the unexpectedly blistering Arizona sun, with not much in the way of outs or support between us and the car park at 50 Mile, another legendary local trail system on the other side of town. It’s going to be a long day.
By the time we get rolling, our planned 7am start is a distant, burrito-wrapped memory and the sun is already making threatening gestures.
Time to hustle, lest we spend the hardest part of the ride enduring the hottest part of the day.
The heat’s no joke out here – temperatures of over 100°F (37.8°C) are all too common – and Molly, Eric the snapper and Eric the guide keep thrusting suncream at me with concerned faces. Not to mention we’re carrying at least 3l of water each. But what a glorious start. We’re up high in a wispy blue sky, with just a touch of chill wind left in the morning.
Our descent begins through the alpine trees of Mt Lemmon’s upper reaches, on dusty singletrack that ribbons around trunks, cacti and bushes with tantalising glimpses of Tucson and the mountains beyond as we weave in and out of the mountain’s edge.
Scree, babyhead rocks and patches of sand make the otherwise grippy, hard-baked dirt loose and perilous, with tight switchbacks and natural steps to navigate. Large rocks lie half-buried in the ground, so even the most carefully buffed berm could have a giant spearhead poking out, and there are plants that want to kill you on all sides at all times.
That’s not even a joke – the spines of the cholla, prickly pear and saguaro cactus are hard and sharp enough to be used as needles, so any kind of fall into one would massively suck. Check out the video of the roadie who falls headlong into a cholla if you don’t believe me.
The prospect of a team of concerned paramedics tweezering spikes out of my private parts is an excellent motivator for focused line choice, so it’s a fast but controlled descent for the first hour, punctuated by stops to re-ride chutes, slabs and dusty berms for photo opportunities, and for quick rests.
Dreams of the desert
This is heaven for me. It’s hot, dusty and there are rocks everywhere to drop off, boost from or judder over as fast as our shocks and tyres will allow. All with the Wile E. Coyote desert of my dreams as a perfect backdrop.
It takes a traverse alongside hundreds of acres of scorched forest to bring us back to reality. The trail we’re riding has only been open for a couple of seasons, since its predecessor, a beloved route called CDO, or Canyon Del Oro, was destroyed in a huge forest fire in 2020.
That one blaze wiped out most of the trail, nearly 480km2 of forest and untold amounts of the local wildlife. Huge teams of volunteers, federal staff and builders have painstakingly restored and diverted this new trail in and around the damaged areas to allow flora and fauna to recover, but what a job.
As the trail’s steepness eases off, we start speeding gently up and down the undulating singletrack across the desert floor, across dry creek beds, wheel-sapping sandpits and the occasional stream, before Eric the guide does his rattlesnake stomp so that we can crowd into a tiny patch of shade and have our lunch.
A bit of a pickle
Ever wondered what it’d be like to eat a sour-watermelon gummy and a big slice of pickle at the same time? I did, and deeply regret it. There’s a reason why no pickle-flavoured chews exist, and it’s the violent clash of textures involved.
The pickle on its own, though?
A revelation. Not only can you buy single giant pickles in gas stations here, each sealed in its own transport-friendly pouch, but the salt content of the juice also makes for an excellent electrolyte boost. So, we chase our sandwiches and cookies with a big slice of pickle and a puckering mouthful of brine, before heading towards the day’s first and only serious climb.
We need to get up the back of the Santa Catalina mountains, through a narrow pass and down into the top of the Upper 50 Year trails – a stunning collection of giant slabs, rock spines and narrow chutes that currently contains, among other delights, our beloved Ranger Raptor truck.
It's our only way home, so there’s no other choice but to get into the easiest gear, take a huge gulp of water and climb for an hour in the hot, hot sun. There’s no chat, no fun wheelies, no comedy sprints – just four dusty, tired riders taking it one pedal stroke at a time up a steep, rock-strewn and entirely silent desert road.
I’d be enjoying the cinematic beauty of the whole thing were it not for the fact that my sea-level lungs want to exit my body through my eyes, so I’m trying not to gently keel over the trail edge and slide to a bloody pulp at the bottom.
There’s just one question left before we get to the truck – have we got the beans to enjoy our last descent? This riding’s so good, you’d be a fool not to.
So, we whoop and swoop over giant, house-sized rock slabs, roll over boulders as big as family cars and throw ourselves off ledges and natural kickers at every turn, with exhausted grins plastered across our salty, pickle-smeared faces.
Over seven hours of riding without a single fall, mechanical or serious navigation error ends with us gulping ice-cold Gatorades in the shadow of our truck as the sun sets, toasting each other’s successes, polishing the lies we'll tell about how hard we shredded and raising a bottle to some of the most beautiful, challenging and unique riding to be found anywhere in the US.
Thanks to Visit Tucson, Pivot Bikes and Ford for their help with this article.