Paul J

I posted this in social media and thought I'd post here too. Does anyone have info on tandem rental in the Phoenix area?

jim_pridx

We've been visiting the Phoenix area every year for well over 20 years now, and I've never been successful in finding a tandem to rent. I'm certainly not saying that a tandem rental place doesn't exist, but I've hit a dead-end every time I've looked. After our last visit last month, our daughter and her husband finally agreed that it would be okay for us to leave a tandem at their place as long as it's packed in our luggage cases, so we're probably going to go that route in the future. Still, if there's a rental place in town somewhere, I'd likely take advantage of it as well. Perhaps someone with any info will pipe in sometime soon......

FWIW, the Tucson area seems to have a more active tandem scene going on than Phoenix. We have some tandem friends that spend their winters there, and they belong to a tandem club (forget the name at the moment) as well as riding with a number of other tandem folks. Whether or not there's a place that rents tandems in Tucson, I wouldn't know, but I would think that the likelihood of such a place would be considerably greater there.

Paul J

Thank you Jim, nothing came up as an option to rent so we've decided to bring our tandem as we are driving. I'm never keen on bringing one of the tandem cross-country. We did it last year so I guess we have experienced. :-). Now we need to come up with some rides in the Phoenix area. We will be staying in Mesa. We are planning to head up to Sedona for a day and ride around there to see the sights and maybe we will go down to Tuscan for a day or two. Does anyone have rides they have done in the three areas?

Alcanbrad

We haven't done any tandem riding in AZ, however, I have done some half bike riding while visiting a close riding buddy that lived in Tucson. These are my impressions of riding around there and some suggestions. First, the riding I've done there was very good, but there is not a lot of variety. Mostly either straight roads in the dessert, steep mountains climbs, or busy urban sprawl areas. Also, for some reason, the asphalt there seems to enjoy wearing tires so make sure your have lots of life in your tires (Maybe somebody knows why this is). My friend lived as the base of Mt. Lemmon and there were 2 basic rides: North up Mt. Lemmon, or south to Pistol Hill. Mt. Lemmon is a great climb of about 22 miles and 5000 feet of climbing. It's a big climb, and big descent. Pistol Hill is very scenic and traffic is not too bad. Pictures below are my heat maps of where I have ridden. Along the ride to Pistol Hill is Saguaro National Park. There is a very nice 8 mile loop through the park with lots scenic stops and short hikes. This is the kidney shaped loop part way down to the Pistol Hill loop.

Another great climb is the climb up to Kitt Peak observatory. Very steep with epic dessert views and the interest of the all the telescopes at the summit. You can park at the road entrance off the highway and just do the climb. Both Mt Lemmon and Kitt Peak are long climbs and long descents. My stoker would not be comfortable with both the up and down, so you would have to decide your comfort level for such terrain and grades.

Another popular climb is Gates Pass which I have not done and I have heard that traffic can be heavy. Also, Tucson has a fairly extensive bike path loop around the city that my friend likes to ride. I have never ridden it so can't comment, but it should offer low traffic, fairly flat and close proximity to amenities. Speaking of which, there is not a lot of water and convenience stores so make sure you have adequate hydration and food with you. There are several campground and overlooks up Mt Lemmon with bathrooms. A popular starting spot for both the pistol hill and Mt Lemmon rides is a restaurant named "Le Buzz" It is packed with cyclists on the weekends who would be a better source of local riding info than myself.

Enjoy your trip!

RCMoeur 

FYI: SR 386 to Kitt Peak is completely closed due to damage from a fire last summer. No anticipated date for reopening.

Paul J

Thanks for these options Alcanbrad and the update Richard. We are heading out for a wedding and then staying two weeks. We will probably try to do rides close to Mesa maybe using the trails and canal paths which hopefully we might be able to access from our VRBO. My folks live out in Apache Junction so we will spends some time out there and are hoping to find a ride we can do from their place. It looks like population really thins-out as you get that far East. We are hoping for two excursions, probably during the week, one to Sedona and a second to Tuscan. In Tuscan we will stay on the trail system which sounds very good.

Thanks for the feedback, If anyone has ideas feel free to weigh-in. :-)