I am from Phoenix but left for college and never went back except to visit my parents. Since they've now moved to Indiana it's hard to see why I'd ever go back. It's all suburbs which seem like a miserable place for a road cyclist. The roads are eight lanes wide and everyone's going 60, and it's hot all the time. I rode my BMX and later 24" MTB all through the state trust land that later became developments in the area between 59th, 43rd, Pinnacle Peak, and Happy Valley, to Waterworld, occasionally rode to junior high at Hillcrest and high school at Deer Valley. But somehow I can't imagine now how I tolerated the heat.
There's very little weather to cause potholes but there were indeed plenty of goatheads.