In Bicycle Love With Lovell (Canyon)

It's a bicyclist's dream ride in the furnace heat summers of Las Vegas.

Lovell Canyon.

It's not like you're biking up at Mount Charleston.

Lovell Canyon is off State Route 160 just over the summit at Mountain Springs. Take a look at the scenery here in this video.

It's 11 miles on a U.S. Forest road to a dirt road. And even thought the paced road surface is bumpy, it's a terrific refuge away from the dangerous, reckless, impaired and uneducated car drivers that threaten the safety of bicyclists on our metro Las Vegas roads.

I parked my car in a dirt lot off SR 160 at Lovell Canyon Road.

Then with a nice tailwind, I biked up the gently sloping uphill road.

As the time appraoched 7 PM, the light and shadows in this canyon, especially on the green-covered contours, made for visual artwork.

It's about 5,900 feet elevation at the end of the 11 miles of pavement and the temperatures are much cooler than the Vegas Valley. Figure about ten degrees cooler.

There are people camping from all types of vehicles, from trailers to cars to tents. There are no facilities so please do not drop garbage on this land.

Buy Alan Snel's Bicycle Man book -- you will enjoy reading it.

 

Let's Bike From Red Rock High Desert To The Strip And Back To Red Rock Canyon: 52 Miles Of Nature And Neon

It's The Big Rectangle bike ride, a 52-mile bicycle route I concocted from my homestead out in the high desert near Blue Diamond down to the Strip (Raiders and A's stadium sites), then over to downtown Las Vegas and Alta Drive, which is followed to Summerlin and Red Rock Canyon, and back to my home.

Wow! It's an amazing bike ride from Red Rock to the Strip and back to Red Rock. I biked down to Blue Diamond Road, took a left of Fort Apache and used the Justin Jones bike lanes and then it was a right turn on Warm Springs Road to take me to Valley View Road and the Raiders stadium.

I don't need to borrow photos or videos from the A's social media for content on the A's stadium construction site. I take my own photos and delight in documenting the world from my bicycle nd along bike bike rides.

I also stopped off at the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix pit building site to check out the bike rack in the parking lot at F1's $500 million grand prix race complex off Koval Lane. Security would not let me in, so I dropped Las Vegas Grand Prix President Emily Prazer's name and that did the trick.

There was also a pit stop at Jay's Market, a wonderful sponsor of LVSportsBiz.com. Please shop at Jay's Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection.

Then it was a bike ride down the Strip, before I made a left at Circus Circus to cut through to Sammy Davis Jr. Drive, which become Industrial Road in the city of Las Vegas. It was a marvelous 74 degrees.

 A left on Alta Boulevard, a decent road for bicyclists, which goes west to Summerlin. It was a left turn on the 215 trail past Palo Verde High School and a right on Charleston Boulevard/State Route 159 and through Red Rock Canyonback to the homestead.

They have started to work on building a paced trail from Summerlin to the Red Rock Scenic Drive entrance, the first segment of a bike trail that is supposed to go all the way to Blue Diamond Road. They're working on the shoulders so would you used full lae on State Route 159 where drivers are people racing at 60-70 mph?   

Buy Alan's Book!

 

Surly Pugsley At Sunset Means Brain And Nature Are Perfect Relationship

 

This bike is a monster on dirt -- a fat-tire, steel-framed, single-speed, shock-free, dirt-munching monster and I love her.

There's a profound relationship between nature and the brain and the Surly Pugsley is the conduit and the trigger making it all better.

I took the bike from my home off State Route 159 outside Las Vegas and followed the single-track dirt trails like Cactus Slalom to the Late Night parking lot off State Route 160.

Then it was Mustang trail to Cactus Slalom back during amazing light at the hour hit 7 PM amid a stunning and inspiring sky.

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Buy this book. It's spectacular:

The Bicycle Lockup Racks Of The Las Vegas Area

The hotels on the Strip and the Sphere hate bicyclists and bicycles.

But I found three places around the Vegas area that have cool bike racks.

The Raiders headquarters in Henderson has these classy black racks in front of their Taj Mahal of a HQ.

Then there's the Las Vegas Aces headquarters and a shopping plaza next door to the Raiders building in Henderson.

And the new Las Vegas civic center plaza has these bike racks.

And the T-Mobile Arena bike racks are near the ticket windows:

  

Nature and The Mind: New Book Says Nature Is Not An Amenity, It's A Necessity

There is a fascinating new book written by a University of Chicago psychology professor connecting nature with your mental and emotional well-being.

It's 10:40AM Wednesday and I returned from a monster 13.3-mile hike from my home into the Red Rock National Conservation Area and back.

My mind feels refreshed and rejuvenated.

I'm listening to University of Chicago professor Marc Berman on KNPR here in Las Vegas talking about the benefits of hiking and also bicycling in nature. His book is called, Nature and The Mind.

Berman's words are vaidating what I preach, that mobility in nature, on trails, around trees or amid mountains has a healing effect on your brain. For me, nature is my cathedral, a place where I reach peace and equilibrium.

I need nature every day. On Monday night I hiked and saw this image. How amazing. "Nature is not an amenity. It's a necessity," Berman said on NPR.

 

What's The Next Ban? Will Clark County Commissioners Ban Bicycles On The Strip?

 

Only four months ago, the Clark County commissioners banned electric bicycles and e-scooters from the Strip Corridor, which includes Las Vegas Boulevard. The county had already banned those upright Segway "Mall Cop" scooters and pedicabs, the giant trikes pedaled by a worker giving people a ride.

What's next? Bicycles?

The Las Vegas/Clark County area ranks very low for its bicycle networks, which consists of mostly a paved trail along a highway or bits and pieces of trails here and there with no bicycle trail continuity.

The RTC folks are supposed to be pushing bicycling as a way for locals to get around and they are very nice people. But these polite RTC staffers are too timid to take on the county commissioners, who are serve as the policy rubberstampers for the corporate hotel owners of the Strip such as MGM Resorts Interational and Caesars Entertainment.

The Strip is a public road. Las Vegas Boulevard, again, is PUBLIC.

But the county commissioners allow the hotel-casino property owners to use the road as their PRIVATE street, where alternative modes of transportation are banned.

Las Vegas needs to grow up and be a real big-league city, one that embraces all forms of mobility.

I bike on the Strip and you can see what it's like to bike the Strip here.

 

Just another day in a town with a one-trick pony economy where the hotel owners tell the county commissioners what to do and you can't even have basic public services like buses or a monorail shuttling visitors from the airport to the Strip and back.

Funny thing about this town called Las Vegas. It's run like a small village by a handful of people with the private interests of the hotels eclipsing the public service needs of the public locals.

  

Happy Labor Day From The Red Rock Scenic Drive

Happy Labor Day from the Red Rock Loop, also known as the Red Rock Scenic Drive.

It's 12.4 miles long and, technically, not an actual course loop. Its exit is about two miles down the road from the start of the scenic drive and its toll booths.

A terrific section is when you approach the Big Red Stripe around Mile 10 on the Loop. Here's a video of my approach this morning.

You enter the Red Rock Loop around 3,600 feet elevation and the top elevation is 4,771 feet. The overlook is ust about near the top at 4,763 feet.

At the overlook you will meet a cross-section of tourists and locals, people here for conventions and family gatherings to local bicyclists and drivers.

I have actually sold a few copies of my book, Bicycle Man, to a few folks I chatted with. If you ejoy reading and bicycle adventures, you will love this book. Just email me to buy your book directly from me.