Riding in Phoenix, AZ

We spent a couple of days in Sedona which is just up the road. The guys in Thunder Bikes were fab. The owner took time to put together a loop from the shop which  included the Mezcal Trail. Highly recommended.

You can’t go wrong in Sedona, all the trails and bike hire places are together on the main strip, it’s not a big town.  A good temperature this time of year for riding.
If you fancied something a bit more different, flagstaff is a couple of hours north.  Some great riding, but it is at altitude and could be deep in snow, so check first.

Tucson to the south also has some great trails in the hills.

I go a few times a year for work. Normally fly my bike out there, there's a couple of shops that offer rentals but its a bit of a faff with brakes the wrong way round etc. Taking your bike means you can get a cheeky ride in before work each morning, you'll be awake anyway due to the jetlag

Good riding in south mountain and hawes if you're staying in phoenix, mcdowell has some blue trails too, or in sedona the "triple h loop" doesn't look too long but will absolutely knacker you out - pretty exposed/tech in places too. Slightly further up, prescott national forest has good trails as does flagstaff.

Signage isn't great so I'd take a GPS with trailforks pre-loaded

if you're feeling brave there's also the white line trail..

We found South Mountain and Hawes systems great riding - take a look a Nate Hills recent Youtube for Hawes examples

South Mountain has some kind of Pivot affiliation/sponsorship. I think they might pay for trail maintenance there. It's well signed and a decent ride from Pima up to however far you want to go. Makes for a decent techy climb up and fun ride down. Classic Western US terrain that makes you kind of appreciate what bike designers based there are looking for. Lots of rocky step-ups and thrutching moves - different to what we have in the UK. The waterfall section was well out of my league in either direction!

Sedona is a couple of hours away - certainly a classic destination but maybe not something to be snuck in after work! There's plenty of riding around Phoenix and Scottsdale if you're just wanting to make the most of before/after work.

The waterfall section was well out of my league in either direction!

The waterfall is perfectly ridable on the way down but pretty unpleasant - the last drop is to upslope, urgh. No idea how you'd do it the other way which I guess goes for a bunch of the climbs - there's a whole load more technical uphills than in the UK and I'm hopeless at them 😀

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'm thinking to take a few days of leave after the work, so travelling further than Phoenix is definitely a possibility.

BTW - if you have anything like a passing interest in aircraft I can recommend a little jaunt down to Tucson on your day off to visit the PIMA museum but pre-book onto the USAF "Boneyard" tour as well. Take the bike and find a friendly shuttle up Mt Lemon for the afternoon. You can thank me later.

Just an update in case anyone's ever searching for info in the future.
- Rode two days in Sedona.
- Thunder Mountain Bikes: absolutely brilliant. Great quality of rental bikes, super helpful and exactly what a bike shop should be like.
- I stayed at the Beaver Creek In, which was good for a budget option as most other Sedona area accom seemed very pricey. 30 min ish drive to Sedona itself (less to Oak Creek), but an easy one to do in the morning to save a few $$.
- Food: Wholefoods for lunches was a win. Also would recommend Sedona Brewery - ate dinner there one eve and the beers and food were delicious.
- Trails: Plenty of trails to access a short pedal from the bike shop and everything I rode was awesome. The scenery is like nothing you've seen before (unless you have) and most trail were a mix of up and down, tech and flow with lots of rock surfaces. Choose your distance carefully because it's hot and reasonably high (1300m starting), so even a shorter distance can take it out of you.
-- Ride 1: Adobe Jack, Jordan and Javelina - about 2 hours
-- Ride 2: Pedal from bike shop up Dry Creek Road and then picked up Chuck Wagon, Mescal, Canyon of Fools, Dawa, AZ Cypress and Two Fence
-- Ride 3: Parked at Little Horse trail head and then took Bell Rock Pathway, HT Trail, Templeton, Hermit to Yavapai Point parking, followed by Kaibab into Slim Shady North, then back on Templeton to Yavapai Point and from there up Slim Shady in the other direction to reach Hi Line. From Hi Line into Baldwin, Templeton, Easy Breezy, HT Trail and Bell Rock back to the car park.
-- Ride 4: From bike shop head left to Shelby Road to pick up Old Post, Skywalker, Herkenham, Old Post to Caroll Canyon and Old Post again to finish.

Thanks for all the advice. S

Sounds ace! Thanks for the update.