A buddy and I would like to escape the Ontario winter scene in February for a weeks worth of training in the Tucson area. We’d like some advice on where (general area or specific reasonably priced hotel) best to stay in the city.
Our requirements are:
Decent proximity to good (safe) roads for cycling. www.bikegaba.org has great maps on some great rides in the area, but it would be nice to not need to fight cross city traffic to get to the best rides.
Decent proximity to some nice run trails:
Within a short drive to a training pool (preferably 50m outdoor)
The Windmill Inn is nicely situated at Campbell and River rds. just N. of the Riilto river. There are excellent bike paths and gravel paths up and down both sides of the River. The Hotel is out of the downtown core area to the North, thus avoiding the bad traffic in Tucson central. For Cycling you would have some good options in going NE or NW. There are several public pools in the area. Hopefully, 115intheshade or Desert Dude can give you better local info. We have a place there near the hotel and I think it is a great spot to train from. When will you be there?
There are a ton of pools in Tucson, but none is 50m in the winter that I can remember . The best riding imo is W towards and over the Tucson Mtns, S towards Helmet peak and houghton and NW towards Oracle. The worst is E (colussal cave area) again imo, i rarely ride that direction when down there anymore. Mt Lemmon being the exception.
trails to run are in the W with Yetman, Starr Pass and Pima comm college xc trails. The Windmill Inn sits on the rillito river which has a river path you can run (and bike to get to other rides and get around town) for about 30 miles or so. Also the Santa Cruz has a 9 mile loop on it which I have run on at least 200 different times. There is a holiday inn express right off of the santa cruz and another hotel that escapes my mind.
Also phone line at Sabino canyon (phone line, 7 pools? and the Sabino canyon road) and the E end of Speedway has good trails to run that hook into Saguaro national park for nice runnig.
The Holliday inn express DD talks about is on Grant road just west of I-10 and would be a great place to stay. I do most of my training on the west side of town and south of Tucson…both mentioned by DD and do the occasional jaunt to Mt. Lemmon. The Sabino Canyon trails (phoneline and 7 falls) are closed due to severe flood destruction) and are not anticipated to be open any time soon. Wasson peak is another great trail on the west side if you like going uphill and the veiw at the top is among the best.
For years the US Cycling Federation ran winter training camps in Tuscon, and found the area to be “difficult”. Without offending Tuscon residents, they were not the least bit cycling- or athlete-friendly. Like any other retirement area in the United States, you are dealing with elderly people who are very protective and posessive of their territory, and are not open to visitors of any kind particularly athletes.
I personally have changed my winter triathlon camps from Arizona and Florida, to Argentina, where accomodations are much less expensive, the population is sports-crazy, and the city of Mar del Plata where the camps take place has an abundance of available sports facilities all in close proximity to hotels. In addition, every year the first weekend of March, the city runs a world-class half-Ironman which sees the city shut down in support of it with tens of thousands of spectators. 2007 is the 20th anniversary of the event.
Mike Fraysse
For years the US Cycling Federation ran winter training camps in Tuscon, and found the area to be “difficult”. Without offending Tuscon residents, they were not the least bit cycling- or athlete-friendly
That is a segment of any city anywhere in the world. In my experience, and I still train there as often as I can, Tucson offers one of the better places to train. I think that if it were so bad, you would not see a who is who on Pro tour teams on the shootout or Sunday climb up Lemmon.
I’m going to Tucson in March to get some training in as well. It will be nice to ride outdoors after being inside all winter. Some great info in this thread. Thanks everyone. I’m staying at the Hilton El Conquistador north of the city. It looks like that’s a decent location to hop on some good roads for riding. It’s a pricey hotel (we got it on points), but they’ve got lots of great ammenities for husband and kids. Gotta keep them happy while I’m out riding!
I’ve been going to Tucson for 10 days or so every Feb over the last few years and always stay at the Marriott Residence Inn on Speedway - www.marriott.com/property/propertypage/TUSAZ. I can do almost all my riding from there, a pool is located a couple miles away (sorry I do not know the name of it), Trader Joes and Starbucks within walking distance and Beyond Bread which is one of the best sandwich places I have ever eaten at across the street. I just booked my stay there for Feb and apparently they just renovated the Marriott. The rooms have kitchens and can comfortably fit 3 or 4 people.
I live on the southeast side and I haven’t had a problem with the riding out here. There are a few small sections of road that don’t give you tons of space, but there are so few signals and so much road its easy to avoid them. Also, I can bike to mount lemmon from my house, 14 miles to the base equals a good warmup. It IS starting to get a bit chilly up there though. There are a few hotels on broadway on the east side that would be convenient to get out to east side riding.
Pools - There are no 50m pools in tucson (that are used as 50m), in fact there’s only 1 pool that is ever 50m and you have to train with the UofA masters team to get access. Being near that pool puts you far away from everything else you were looking for.
Trails - Broadway trails and speedway trails on the east side are great trail running. You can have flatish/easy courses to mountain/rock climbing courses. Its tons of fun and while its easy to get lost from the path you wanted to take, its hard to get really lost since there are so many criss-crossing trails.
I also have a spare room so PM me, maybe we could work a deal.