2 days of bicycling on Tucson’s Loop Trail

How amazing is this: 137 miles of connected, paved and wide trails that make a loop and some spurs in and around Tucson, full of everyone from small packs of fast-moving road cyclists to someone out for a walk, with or without a dog? And more miles are coming.

More amazing: the project was envisioned as a flood control measure, not a multi-use path. But when people started walking and biking on these soil cement bank reinforcements (can I call them levees?), it became so much more.

As the Loop expanded, it connected to more neighborhoods and helped spur more parks. Its full name, btw, is the Chuck Huckelberry Loop, named after a longtime county administrator who also is an avid cyclist.

Here’s an interactive map of the Loop.

This was my first trip to Tucson, and I wasn’t the only one looking to escape winter weather with an Arizona break. Highs in the mid-70s! We saw so many road riders on the Loop getting their winter miles or warming up for the spring riding season back home.

We weren’t quite that hardcore. Three of us spent parts of two days biking parts of the Loop — 30 miles out and back each day.

Rather than ship our bikes, we rented hybrid bikes from a business right off the trail on Thornydale Road near Costco. An interesting experience: the business uses a number of storage lockers to house the bikes and no one is on hand to help you pick the bike, make sure it fits well or even do any quick repairs like lube the chain. It’s all done online and by text. No maps either, no matter what the website says.

And with all that, it’s still not cheap: $100 for two days of hybrids, more if you want road bikes. (Daily rates do drop sharply the longer you rent: $175 for 10 days, $225 for up to 90 days.)

If there’s a better option out there, we didn’t find it.

One tip: take up any offers to check other lockers for other bikes. Two of us swapped out our bikes on Day 2 and were much happier.

But if I was going for several weeks, I’d consider shipping my bike or bringing it as luggage. One big consideration: How easily can you get it into a car? Especially if you aren’t limiting yourself to Tucson. Phoenix is a solid 90 minutes away, and we didn’t have the option of a non-stop to Tucson from the East Coast.

On the trail

On our first day of cycling, we headed northeast to Oro Valley and the entrance to Catalina State Park, then backtracked and biked northwest toward Marana. On our second day, we headed south to pick up the Rillito River Park Trail, which follows a dry river bed and happened to be Rails to Trails’ Trail of the Month for February 2025.

Lots of cacti, especially on our first day: Saguaro, purple prickly pears and more.

Also lots of art, especially along the Rillito River Trail. Definitely one of the highlights for me. Sometimes it was just tiles at the end of bridges, sometimes a statue or a cool mural.

Pima County even has a map/brochure called “Art on the Loop” that lists 29 pieces just on the Rillito and 63 over the entire loop that are funded by the county’s decision to allocate 1% of a public project’s cost to art. I wish we’d had it on our ride because we missed so many. (Other pieces on the Loop are donations.)

This trail also scored points for being away from highway noise and for all its underpasses at road crossings. I think we only had to deal with traffic twice over 30 miles.

Just a warning that we spotted a few homeless encampments in the dry river bed (or is it really a wash?) and saw some up-close drug use near the transit center. We realized that’s why most people were cycling on the northern banks of the Rillito.

While you can’t really get lost on the trail, there’s still room for improvement on signage. For example, we never saw a follow-up to this sign when it was time to turn left (south) to reach the Rillito.

And keep your eyes peeled for bathrooms and drinking fountains — no signage for these either. The best tip-off is the sight of other cyclists taking a break.

One thing we lacked on our two days of biking was a good destination or two. For our return visit, where should our rides take us?

Off the trail

We only biked for two days because there is so much to do off the bike. For fun, I put together a bingo card with some possibilities.

We didn’t do it all (and spring training is in the Phoenix metro area), but here’s some of what we found:

• A tour of the Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory on the University of Arizona campus. Learn how mirrors for telescopes are made — a process that can take EIGHT years! Fascinating, not free.
• The John Dillinger courtroom. America’s most wanted was captured in Tucson, arraigned and quickly extradited to Indiana, where he escaped from jail and was killed in Chicago. An unexpected bit of history in the old (and beautiful) courthouse. Music in the courtyard on Fridays too. The courthouse also is where you find the visitors center and where we found Loop maps.
• D1 softball. The University of Arizona’s softball team was hosting a tournament, and we got senior tickets for $9. Great facility, but concession prices rival those of Citizens Bank Bank (home of the Phillies). We could have bought tickets on the secondary market for a men’s basketball game but .. no time. If I was staying longer, I’d look for more events on campus, especially free talks open to the public.
• So many options to look at the night sky! If you want to go to a night event at an observatory, book early. Really early. We ended up with the daytime package at Kitt Peak National Observatory (3 tours for the price of 2, and yes there is a little overlap in the tour guides’ patter). We met a couple who had booked one of the nighttime events 6 months in advance. And on the tour of the Mirror Lab, we learned about tours at the University of Arizona’s Skycenter on Mount Lemmon.
• Loved Saguaro National Park, both east and west sides. I’d say the west side was more impressive in terms of Saguaro cacti. We had hoped to go on a sunset hike, but this was just as cuts started hitting the National Park Service, and the hike was cancelled because of staffing shortages. And if you are 62 or older, get the lifetime pass for all the national parks!
• My new National Parks pass also got us into Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, run by the U.S. Forest Service. Lots of hiking options for all abilities.
• Titan Missile Museum a good drive south of Tucson is an interesting bit of history. Arrive a bit early and enjoy the displays in the visitors center. Kind of scary that a middle-age woman had to ask her elderly father what was meant when a sign discussed how the U.S. and the Soviet Union sought other means of confronting each other without turning to nuclear missiles. The lesson: Learn history, or we are doomed to repeat it.
• Weird beer … with cinnamon! (That’s the horchata)

• Fun art on the Aviation Bikeway: the rattlesnake bridge. Love both the mouth and tail! And glad we didn’t see any live snakes during our 5+ days in Tucson.