Mt. Lemmon Hill Climb

Yes, Mt Lemmon is right up there with the famous passes in the European tours: hardly anywhere else in the US can you climb so high for so many miles in succession. That's why, every winter, Tucson sees packs of riders in matching jerseys, many of them speaking languages other than English, booking up the mountain.

But because the road is so long, it's also very forgiving: the grade averages only 4.5% for 6600 feet of elevation gain over the 56-mile round trip, and the almost continuous 21-mile descent at the end is exciting without ever being terrifying.