Tucson is surrounded on all four sides by mountain ranges. This page describes and provides links to pages about rides around each mountain range.
North – Santa Catalinas
The Santa Catalina Mountains are most famous for Mount Lemmon, one of the great climbs of North America. The big loop around the Santa Catalinas is about 103 miles, with 75 miles of pavement and 28 miles of dirt road.
Another sort-of-loop climbs Mount Lemmon from Oracle, and if you leave out the final 3+ miles to the top of Mount Lemmon, you are doing a roughly 100 mile loop around Mount Lemmon, if not the full Santa Catalina range. Again, mainly pavement with about 23 miles of dirt road.
South – Santa Ritas
The shortest road loop around the Santa Ritas is about 113 miles. There is a shorter mixed loop of about 84 miles that goes through Box Canyon and along Forest Road 143.
East – Rincon Mountains
There is just one loop around the Rincon Mountains, a mixed pavement and dirt ride of about 117 miles: 71 miles of pavement and 46 miles of dirt, including riding over Redington Pass.
West – Tucson Mountains
There are two main road loops around the Tucson Mountains, what I call the Inner Loop that goes over Gates Pass and Picture Rock Road, and the Outer Loop that goes round the full Tucson Mountain range: south of Cat Mountain and north of Safford Peak.
Cycle Uphill 