Lemmon Drop route

This ride is insanely fun and difficult. I have ridden all over the west, including most of the classic shuttles and this is one of my favorite rides I’ve done. It is extremely technical the entire ride. I can’t imagine the majority of people would have a good time, but that made me like it more.

I was about to book a shuttle Tucson Mountain Shuttle for me and another friend. The owner Timothy was awesome. The website was a little clunky when I went to book, but I was able to arrange the shuttle by calling and texting with Timothy. The rates were reasonable and the service was awesome.

Rider Profile: I am a strong rider, consider myself intermediate/advanced mtb rider. To put into perspective for the Tucson locals, I ride hard up 50 year trail that connects to Gem but still cannot clear 1 or 2 sections on that climb.

Trail Review:

Aspen Draw:
We rode up from the Ski resort parking lot. The gate was closed. It should have been open but was not. We ran into snow on Aspen Draw and had to turn around, so I cannot review that section. I have been told this is a pretty fast and fun section.

Marshal Gulch:
This area is pretty remote and had a ton of downed trees. In some sections we only had a half track and had to use our nav to find/track the trail. They are not allowed to do maintenance on this area until the Summer, because of some owl in the area. This explains the state of the trail.

Mt Bigelow Road:
This is just a slow chug climb up a fire road. crossing under the highway was pretty cool because the tunnel was pretty big.

Incinerator Ridge:
just because .001 percent of people think this is a mtb trail does not make this one to me. This section has extremely steep rock drops and extreme exposure. Imagine places with a half track(half the width of a single track) with nothing but loose gravel and a cliff immediately to your left. In fact some places the trail just disappeared and you had to hop a gap in the trail. I walked about 40% of this trail because I just did not think it was safe to ride.

Green Mtn:
This is a step down from Incinerator Ridge but still suffers from the same problem, extreme exposure and cliff to your left. It starts to ease up a bit as you get to the end however there are a lot of big steps and tight switch backs to maneuver and the exhaustion will start to get to you at this point. I walked about 30% of this.

Bug Springs:
We had a food drop at the park down here so took some much needed rest and filled up on water. This is where I would say the the trail really becomes a MTB trail with some flow and stuff that does not scare the living shit out of the average rider. The first section is a solid steep hike a bike section. While this is hard, the exposure is not as bad. You finally start to see some consistent downhill at this section of the trail. There is good flow and some nice rock gardens to work in this section.

Prison Camp:
This section is also a nice downhill section. Not as hard as Bug Springs but still fast and with some nice drops

Milagrosa:
There is another solid Hike a bike section here like at Bugs. This one is a little longer but not as steep. I personally really enjoyed the amount of slab and drops in MilaGrosa. There is a ton of water in this area so the vegetation is unique here. I would say this is my favorite section of the trail.

Conclusion:
I do not recommend the full Lemon drop for most people. I can see it as a bucket list item but for the average rider they are not going to have fun on the first half before Bug Springs. If you are a masochist and want to torture yourself for 4+ hours go ahead and do the whole thing. While I am a bit of a masochist, I am also a safe rider, and that top section(Above Bugs) did not seem safe to me nor something the average and even advance rider can handle.

There are other great trails in Tucson to ride and in my opinion the top section is just a waste of time and energy. Skip the top half, do bugs all the way down and go ride Around the Mtn at 50 year. You will not be disappointed.

I did not follow the previous comment and found myself hating the day. I hiked a lot of sections. I was straight up not having a good time. Read the previous comment and if that’s you hit it up. I myself have attempted and the Lemmon Dropped on me.