Electric Bikes From Scottsdale to the Hole in the Rock
A paved path runs from Old Town Scottsdale into Papago Park, where the only real climbing is the last five minutes on foot.
Phoenix sprawls, and on a map the gap between Old Town Scottsdale and the red buttes of Papago Park looks like a drive. On an electric bike it is a path. The route runs along the Greenbelt, a paved corridor threading golf courses, playing fields and water, then drops under the road crossings through tunnels on the approach to Tempe Town Lake, where the grade tips gently up and down. The operator rates this ride easy for all fitness levels, and the pedal assist is what makes that rating hold. Two hours covers the whole loop, out and back from one door on East Earll Drive.
Helmets and the bikes come with the booking, along with a bottle of water. Hotel pickup does not. Everyone meets at the shop and the group leaves from there. Riders have to be at least twelve, weigh 80 pounds, and anyone under sixteen rides with an adult. The operator caps a booking at eight riders.
Hole in the Rock & Tempe Lake E-Bike Tour - 2 HoursTwo hours by electric bike from Old Town Scottsdale through Papago Park, helmet, bike and water included.www.viator.comThe Only Stop Is a Hole in a Butte
Bikes get parked at the base of the formation. Twenty minutes are set aside here, and the walk up the trail takes about five of them. The hole is a weathered cavity in sandstone, open at both ends and wide enough that people sit along the lip with the Papago basin spread out underneath. Everything else on this route is seen from the saddle.
Where the Scenery Changes Register
The first half is unapologetically suburban: fairways, ballfields, lakes, a disc golf course. Papago Park switches that out for maroon sandstone pocked with wind holes, and roadrunners turn up along this stretch. On a hilltop sits a white pyramid, the tomb of George W. P. Hunt, Arizona's first governor. The route passes it in view rather than at the door, the same way it passes the Phoenix Zoo and the back fence of the Desert Botanical Garden.
The Way Back Runs Along the Canals
The return leaves the park on the canal banks, which the operator calls the one stretch you cannot ride anywhere else. The geometry is the argument: service roads beside the water, traffic behind a fence rather than at your elbow, and Camelback Mountain in view for most of the way back into Old Town.
Booking, Timing and the Fine Print
Confirmation is instant, and the booking window shuts fifteen hours before departure. Cancelling at least twenty-four hours ahead returns the full amount; inside that window nothing comes back. Bad weather is not a cancellation trigger in the policy, though the operator can call off a departure that draws too few riders. Spinal injuries, heart conditions and pregnancy are all on the not-recommended list.
The shop is a brown building on East Earll Drive with segway lettering in black, a courtyard you walk into, and the office behind the last door on the right. Street parking is the norm. Turn up in shoes you can walk a trail in, with sunglasses, and the hardest call left is where to sit on the lip of the rock.