What is the Tour de Scottsdale?
For cyclists, the loop around the McDowell Mountains is the ride: north out of Scottsdale on Pima and Dynamite, east across the open desert to Rio Verde, south through Fountain Hills, and back along Shea. It has climbs, wind, and views of the Preserve that make the suffering worthwhile. The Tour de Scottsdale closes the roads, adds aid stations and a few thousand companions, and turns it into an event.
It started in 2004 as a community project of DC Ranch, the master-planned neighborhood on the McDowells’ west slope, and ran every October through 2018 as one of the state’s largest rides and a fundraiser for the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy. Then it lapsed — five years of no Tour — until the Conservancy itself brought it back in April 2024 with Perimeter Bicycling, the organization behind Tucson’s El Tour, and moved the start to WestWorld. Nearly 6,000 riders showed up across the first two revived editions.
The 2027 edition on April 10 shortens the routes to 54 and 28 miles and lowers the fees. The beneficiary is still the Conservancy — the volunteer stewards of the 30,000-acre preserve the ride circles — which is the reason locals ride it even when they could do the loop for free any Sunday.
Riding it well
The long course has three chapters. The first fifteen miles roll north on Pima and east on Dynamite — flat, fast, and paced by the front groups. The middle section through Rio Verde to Fountain Hills carries the climbs and the wind; it’s open desert with long sightlines and no shelter, and it’s where the ride is decided. The final stretch back to WestWorld is a reward: gradual descent, tailwind if you’re lucky, and the McDowells on your right the whole way.
Train for wind, not just hills. The elevation gain (about 2,500 feet in the metric-century years) is rolling, but the exposure between miles 20 and 40 can double the effort on a breezy morning. Ride the Rio Verde road once in February to calibrate.
Corrals and timing. The long route rolls at 7 a.m. from WestWorld with corrals by expected pace; the short route follows around 8:45. Arrive by 6 to park in the WestWorld lots, pick up anything you missed at Friday’s expo, and get near the front of your corral. Aid stations are well spaced; 2027 replaces the post-ride lunch with food trucks at the finish.
Practical: spring mornings start in the 50s and finish in the 80s — arm warmers you can stuff in a pocket. Download the route from the organizers’ Ride with GPS page. WestWorld has RV and lodging info for out-of-town riders; the Airpark hotels are ten minutes away.
A ride built by a neighborhood, saved by a preserve
The Tour’s origin is unusual: not a race promoter but a homeowners’ community. DC Ranch, developed on the McDowells’ flank in the late 1990s, positioned itself as an outdoors-minded village, and its community council produced the first Tour de Scottsdale on October 17, 2004 from Market Street, the neighborhood’s own town center. The route was the loop residents already rode; the beneficiary was the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy, the nonprofit that stewards the preserve rising directly behind the neighborhood’s back fences.
It worked for fourteen years, growing into one of Arizona’s biggest cycling events. But community-run events depend on volunteers and momentum, and after 2018 both ran out. The hiatus stretched across the pandemic, and by 2023 the Tour existed mainly as a fond memory and a set of jerseys in North Scottsdale closets.
The revival came from the beneficiary. The Conservancy, which had every reason to want its signature fundraiser back, partnered with Perimeter Bicycling — the Tucson nonprofit that has run El Tour de Tucson since 1983 and knows how to close roads for thousands of riders — and restaged the Tour on April 13, 2024 from WestWorld, whose lots and Loop 101 access solved the logistics DC Ranch’s village center never could. HonorHealth signed on as presenting sponsor in 2026, and the ride is now part of Perimeter’s “El Tour America” calendar.
Why the loop matters
The McDowell Sonoran Preserve is the largest urban preserve in the country, assembled by Scottsdale voters through two sales-tax measures over twenty years. The Tour is one of the few events that lets the city see it whole: the ride traces the preserve’s perimeter, and the money goes to the volunteers who maintain its trails. The 2027 changes — shorter routes, lower fees, food trucks instead of a catered lunch — are aimed at getting more people around it. In a city that measures its outdoors in golf courses, a 3,000-rider lap of its mountains is a meaningful counterargument.