Dust, cacti, singletracks and tacos. Tim Wild heads out to Arizona for some exploration.

Keep your pedals level

It’s always the stupid ones that hurt. Seconds before, I’d been minding my own business, cruising along, gazing at the towering cacti and yellow poppies without a care in the world. Then a tiny “crack” and I’m instantly pancaked into the dusty ground, palms out, gloves sitting forgotten in my backpack. I was lucky - I only lost some skin off my palm and a small measure of dignity. Two feet shorter and I’d have landed full-body on a large prickly pear, and that would have been much worse, likely involving my tender parts exposed to every passing hiker, while a relative stranger slowly extracted cactus spines with tweezers.This landscape might be beautiful, but it isn’t very forgiving.  Welcome to Tucson, Arizona. 

Jojo left his home…

Maybe you remember it from the lyrics of ‘Get Back’. Or you’ve seen it in those pictures of those giant aircraft graveyards. A ZZ Top video perhaps…

Even if you haven’t been here, you’ll recognise it. From a thousand movie scenes, or Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner, or whatever you see in your head when you picture the American West. 

The cacti are as tall as houses, the desert scrubland spreads in all directions, and the rocks change colour from yellow to orange to purple with the setting of the sun. I’m here to ride as much as I can in three days, which turns out to be just a fraction of the trails, and best of all, Tucson is a city. A real one. That means decent wine. Painfully specialist coffee. A chance of getting some dinner after 8pm. 

I love the wilderness and the outdoors with all my heart, and riding in it is the most reliable form of happiness I know. But when it’s over, you can take your tents and your head-torches and your hand-operated coffee grinders and carry on over the next hill. I want a hot shower, a cold beer and a menu. Seems Tucson has all three, in excellent shape. 

Singletrack satisfaction at Sweetwater

After a heartily delicious breakfast of Huevos Rancheros in the 5 Points Market a few minutes from our hotel (we’re just an hour or so from the border with Mexico, and there’s great Mexican food everywhere), our Tucson initiation begins at Sweetwater Preserve in Saguaro National Park.

We (guide Matt, snappers Casey and Tyson and myself) are starting here at Sweetwater Preserve trails for a reason. Just because I’m a journalist, and my companions are pro photographers, doesn’t mean we necessarily know how to ride. So day one is a taster day, just so Matt can make sure we’re not going to ruin his week by requiring a tourniquet, an airlift and a ton of insurance paperwork. 

These trails, nestling in the foothills of the Tucson Mountain Park, aren’t going to feature in any Enduro or DH races anytime soon, although there’s plenty of those trails around. If you picked your route here carefully, you could cruise around with the kids, or a friend who was just getting started. The trails are mostly smooth, rolling and gentle - no abrupt punches up rocky inclines, no big jumps or drops - but if you came to Tucson and didn’t ride here, you’d be missing out, because it’s absolutely spectacular. 

Huge, aged Saguaro cacti tower over the trail, throwing impossible shadows. There are Teddy Bear Cholla cacti too (so called because of their deceptively fluffy exterior, which is actually thousands of sharp spines), and bright red Ocotillo plants and chubby barrel cacti, strewn among a carpet of yellow desert poppies.  

The hard packed, narrow singletrack weaves in and out of the cartoon cacti, and it’s fast - our guide Matt sets a pace that pushes us up and down the undulating landscape, over rock gardens and through dry riverbeds until we’re breathless. An excellent start as far as I’m concerned, even with a bandage on my scuffed palm. If this is a gentle introduction, I can’t wait for the rest. 

Matt - funny, considerate and an excellent rider - also knows how to take care of a gang of hot, thirsty people. A cooler full of sodas and beers, snacks and some camping chairs appear from the van, we toast the day’s success, and head back to clean up before supper. 

Hearty starty

I am a sucker for a proper American breakfast. I hate starting the day with a snatched McDonald’s in the van, or with campfire porridge. I like a couple of coffees, a chance to plan, maybe let last night’s wine recede slightly from my frontal lobes. 

We’ve been urged to try Seis Kitchen, an authentic Mexican breakfast spot, and from the line at the window and constant procession of high-end roadies piling in for coffee, it’s clearly a local favourite. This is supposed to be a feature about riding, not food, but just consider this for a minute. Three scrambled eggs, mixed with a handful of fresh tortilla chips that have wilted in the heat, along with refried beans topped with cheese, a mountain of roasted potatoes and a choice of salsas? Tell me you don’t want that before a day on the bike, and I’ll tell you you’re a liar. 

Four coffees later, groaning with pleasure and waddling slightly, we set off for the 50 Year Trails, a collection of XC and technical trails at the base of the north-eastern edge of the Catalina State Park, about 50 mins drive from Tucson. Everyone I met who knew anything about riding here told me we had to come here. So we did. 

Slab Happy

I have my doubts about doing anything strenuous after our breakfast. I consider just curling up in the van and leaving them to it. But the lure of the mountains is a strong one, and soon we’re speeding across the desert floor from the trailhead, heading for ‘The Chutes’. How’s this for smart, considerate trail building? The main ‘50 Year’ trail is, we’re told, pretty technical, with a lot of technical features, super-steep climbs, rock slabs and more. So before you get there, you can ride ‘The Chutes’. This is a small but perfectly formed trail on shallower ground, closer to the trailhead, which can either be a great warm-up before the main event, or a place to just session and improve your skills. It reminds me of a water slide at a swimming pool - deeply dug into the ground, with a bunch of options from the top, and the chance to ride high up the sides if you’re fast or good enough. Ten minutes of reasonable pedalling and you’re back up top, ready to do it all again.  It’s the kind of trail that makes you oddly disappointed you don’t have all day to do it over and over, just to see how fast you can get. 

But we have bigger fish to fry. Or whatever the desert version is. Cacti to avoid, maybe. 

‘50 Year’ is a proper hearty serving of a trail, and not for the faint-hearted. It’s a 1.6 km Black Diamond section of a much larger trail that runs in a 31 km loop from Catalina State Park, but today we’re doing the upper section, where the fun stuff is most concentrated.

If you’ve never ridden on this desert granite, it’s something you should try. The levels of grip are unbelievable. We climb up impossibly steep rock faces, at a pace barely above a trackstand, without a single slip of the tyre. And descents that, on dustier or more slippery rocks, would have most of us calling mountain rescue, can be tackled at whatever pace you like, hand heavy on the front brake, with enough traction to stop and have a look around before you get to the bottom.

There are ride-arounds and alternate lines everywhere, and Matt finds an optional line about 30 mins into the ride that tests me to the limit. It’s a rock spine with a hefty hop-up to begin, followed by 15ft of balancing on the slim apex, before a near-vertical roll to the trail, with a hefty rock lump at the bottom right where you don’t want it. Matt, predictably, makes it look easy, but I foolishly use my back brake instead of my front at a crucial moment. I just manage to catch the bike before I slide into a 20ft gully. I give it another go, but have to dab my foot down halfway, failure again. Well maybe next time. 

After a couple more hours of plunging, hopping onto ledges, and generally having my novice ass handed to me, we end with a swift, twisty singletrack sprint along Middle Gate trail. There’s a ton of pedalling, ruts and rock hops that help to end the ride on a high. ‘50 Year’ might not be there for that long  - the land is on a lease that’s due to end - so I’m glad to get the chance to ride it. You should too. It’s amazing. 

Lemmon Drops

We’ve all felt the distinct tourist’s disappointment. You get somewhere new, you go and do the thing that all the guidebooks and reviews and whatever tell you is the best - a restaurant, a day out, a view - and it’s not great. When you mention it to locals, they give you a pitying smile, and tell you where you should have gone instead. 

I had that fear about ‘Bug Springs’. It’s the one Tucson trail I’ve heard of, and the one that everyone mentioned when I told them I was coming here, so I’m half-expecting the reality to fall short of the hype. 

After yet another breakfast big enough to fell a woodchipper, we join Matt and shuttle driver Eric at the van. You can ride ‘Bug Springs’ by climbing the road, or via a gravel/xc route from the other side of Mt. Lemmon, but who says no to an uplift? 

This hill feels like the cycling capital of Arizona. There are road cyclists, mountain bikers and bike-laden vehicles on every inch of the steep mountain road that takes us 5000ft up, and any thoughts that this ride might be over-hyped ebb away with every sharp hairpin. It’s a different landscape too - more wooded, with denser greenery than the desert vistas of the previous two days, small streams of snowmelt trickling down the rocks and a great view over the city. By the time we reach the top we’re all raring to go. 

Except the top isn’t, you know, the real top. The real top is a solid, deep breath, you-can-do-it, push up a series of steep wooded steps cut into the peak to help hikers out.  

It’s totally worth it. ‘Bug Springs’ throws us right in at the deep end, with steep, chunky technical turns, stretches of lingering show crust and deep fast chutes. There are tight switchbacks, sudden bursts of intense climbing, and by the time we stop to admire the view from the towering hoodoos, we’re all in full-on babbling adrenaline mode. It just keeps changing. One minute we’re skittering across off-camber kitty litter with deadly plunges to one side, the next we’re rolling up and over huge boulders in the forest, with countless line choices, boosting bumps and narrow navigation spots along the way.  

We descend 500m over nearly 8km, and every second of it is a pure adrenaline bath. I’d fly out here just to ride this trail and go straight back home, just for the grin it puts on everyone’s faces. 

After a quick stop to wolf snacks and gird loins, we cross the road and head down ‘Prison Camp’, a faster, less technical trail that descends over 200m in a couple of miles, and feels like a playground after ‘Bug Springs’ - we all hit it as fast as we can, popping off rocks and yelling our lungs out. Eric is waiting at the bottom with the van, a pillow-sized bag of tortilla chips, spicy salsa and a cooler full of beers and sodas. A truly epic and unforgettable day’s riding. 

Say it ain’t over

I really love America - not just for the riding, and the beauty of the landscape, but because I’ve never been welcomed with anything other than genuine warmth by the MTB community here, and Tucson is no exception. Local bike shop owner and Tucson MTB veteran Dale invites me over to his Guru Bikes store that same night, so we can talk MTB, and join him and his buddies on a night ride of the same Sweetwater trails I rode earlier in the week.  They come alive in a whole new way at night. The giant saguaro cacti take on mysterious forms against the sunset, and the night sky is filled with clouds of stars, a low full moon and the soft flit of bats against the torch beams. Plus we get to go for $3 beef head tacos afterwards. Instant joy, instant friends, instant welcome. Love this place.

As I take advantage of Dane’s extensive workshop (and expertise) to pack my loaner Revel Rail 29 back into its bag the next day, praying to god it doesn’t get thrown down the stairs by customs officials (or labelled as a trade sample, and obliging me to spend many hours explaining how it’s not mine, but I’m allowed to have it, and I’m not going to sell it, etc), I get a couple of hours to quiz Dane and his friendly crew about Tucson, and riding, and life in general. They’re devotees, to a man - Dane’s just opened the shop, after being here for over 20 years, because he thinks the scene is so healthy. And it really feels that way. Three days riding here, and I know I’ve only scratched the surface of the mountains that surround this city, the dozens of trails they hide, and the dozens more yet to be built.

It’s cheaper and quicker to go to the French Alps, or Final Ligure, or Bikepark Wales, or your local pump track for that matter. But the riding, the landscape, the atmosphere and the people here  guarantees you a mountain bike adventure that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. I'd say it’s worth the extra. 

Thanks to Visit Tucson https://www.visittucson.org/ Homegrown MTB https://homegrownmtb.com/ and Revel Bikes https://revelbikes.com/ for their help with this article. 

Photos: Corie Sprull and Tyson Swasey

What I rode: Revel Rail 29” in Large, with SRAM Eagle 1x1 https://revelbikes.com/product/rail29/

Where I rode:

Sweetwater Preserve trails

The Chutes, Upper 50 Year and Middle Gate trails

Bug Springs and Prison Camp trails

Where I stayed: Tucson Motel

https://www.thetuxonhotel.com/ 

Who I rode with:

https://homegrownmtb.com

By IMB

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