St. George, Utah's Virgin River Trail System -- Network Of Paved Trails Makes For Gorgeous Settings For Walkers, Bicyclists

 

For years I drove through the city of St. George in southern Utah along I-15 on the way to Zion National Park without stopping to bike the paved trails in the city.

A friend sent a social media post about St. George's Virgin River Trail system -- and that knocked me into action today for a two-hour car trip to St. George to spend an afternoon wandering around on those gorgeous paved trails on my road bicycle.

The Virgin River Trail seems like a spine for a web of paved trails that spill into neighborhoods, along commercial roads and along waterways.

The difference of riding a bicycle on the road compared to biking on a paved trail is profound. It's two distinct experiences of aesthetics and safety. As a bicycling friend put it, "Not facing mortal threats makes for a much nicer ride."

With today's lovely sunny, 70-degree weather, there were all types of bicyclists out there, from boomers on e-bikes to teens on mini-motorcycle-looking two-wheelers.

Here's a beautiful screen grab from this video.

And this is some amazing bicycling in this video. 

The trail network included this cool extended mural depicted in this video.

There were all types of trails hooking into the Virgin River Trail and what I liked about them is that they led to parks, residential neighborhoods and even to businesses.

There were also parking lots sprinkled throughout the trail network.

And the scenery was wonderful.

So many roads in the city of Las Vegas and Clark County are six-lane highways with traffic lights. But I love this photo showing four lanes and a paved trail in the corridor. The bottom line for the city and Clark decades is that of designing roads for the high-speed convenience of motorists over the safety of walkers and bicyclists has produced the tragic and disturbing yet predictable outcomes of dead and injured walkers and bicyclists.

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So Much Can Be Done To Make Red Rock Corridor/State Route 159 A Safer, More Enjoyable Transportation Experience In Las Vegas (Please Finish That Red Rock Trail!)

 

It's easy to be struck by the contrast of the glitzy over-the-top Strip/Las Vegas' boring, sprawling suburbs and the stunningly beautiful Red Rock Canyon where a single two-land road called Nevada State Route 159 offers a front row seat to gaze at the calico-and-crimson-colored rugged foothills of the Spring Mountains.

The average town in the U.S/. would build a paved trail through this delightful visual corridor for bicyclists and walkers for safety purposes.

But this is Las Vegas and Clark County, where local government vision and planning are low, the bar is low and the standards of amenities and services are low.

There is a plan to build a 19-mile paved trail along the SR 159 corridor and there were nice groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies in 2025 and 2026 to celebrate the start of this badly-needed trail project that is needed for safety purposes because of the speeding motorists, mammoth trailer trucks and daredevil motorcyclists who threaten the safety of bicyclists who are brave enough to follow a road shoulder from the Summerlin side or the state route 160 side.

But the vast majority of the first phase of the "bicycle trail" work was actually for cars when the trail opened with a feeble length of ,99 of a mile. The first phase included a parking lot for 76 cars at the start at the Sky Vista Dr. traffic light; another parking lot for cars to see the Red Rock Canyon welcome sign; and right turn "deceleration" lanes off SR 159 onto the welcome sign parking lot, Calico Basin Rd and the BLM-managed Red Rock Scenic Drive. 

A startling high number of two million people visit Red Rock -- more than what the new MLB A's baseball stadium will hold if every one of the 81 home games are sold out in 2028 when the stdium opens on the Strip..

The publicly-funded government tourism agency called the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) could create amazing tourism income if it promoted Red Rock Canyon's natural splendor like it did the Strip. But the public LVCVA functions as the marketing and PR arm of the private hotel corporations on the Strip, so no worries about the LVCVA making Red Rock Canyon too popular with visitors.

Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones, who is an avid bicyclist who does triathalons, deserves so much credit for pushing the Red Rock Legacy Trail to its starting line. I assume he must be bummed that the trail itself measures a puny .99 of a mile in the first phase.

A sign at the end of the .99 of a mile paved trail says the trail will be expanded in 2027.

There is a new county commissioner elected to fill the seat of Justin Jones, who did not run for re-election in November. Her name is Minja Yan,  a pro-transportation candidate who I am counting on to get the rest of this trail built for safety purposes.

On Sunday I decided to bike along the shoulders of SR 159 through Red Rock Canyon to see what it's like to ride a bicycle on a gorgeous sunny weather day. The scenery was inspiring, but what I witnessed was the usual speeding motorcyclists and motorists who pulled idiotic stunts like making U-turns in the middle of the road when they missed turns along SR 159. (It was Sunday so no rumbling tractor-trailers buzzing bicyclists.)

I did not see any state police troopers patrolling this corridor. And the state Department of Transportation has done no improvements to the State Route 159 corridor after the Nevada DOT held community meetings to draw suggestions from residents.

Most major league cities would showcase the Red Rock Canyon corridor and make sure paved trails were built to improve safety for bicyclists and walkers. Not Las Vegas. There would be state police patrolling the corridor and road improvements to make this busy road safer because now SR 159 has become a commuter link between Pahrump and Las Vegas. No, not Nevada.

This is why Las Vegas and Nevada score at the bottom of the barrel of quality-of-life rankings.

Man, if only those billions of dollars rolling into Las Vegas thanks to all those sports events and stadiums were put to good use by improving our local roads and making our roads safer.

The Beautiful Wheels Of Mobility: Moving By Bicycle In So Many Ways To So Many Different Destinations

 

It was the first Monday in November and the weather was absolutely gorgeous in Death Valley.

I live only an hour and 45 minutes from the Furnace Creek visitors center at Death Valley, where I love to ride my famed Surly Pugsley of a a fat-tire, single-speed bicycle on the hard-packed, dirt 20 Mule Team Canyon Road.

Then, there's the road bike, which I pedaled on the amazing Artist Drive.

Take a look:

It's a beautiful bike ride on Artist Drive, a nine-mile narrow strip of pavement.

There are two to three miles of steep uphill bicycling, then some downhill curves before another two miles of climbing and a fast descent back to Badwater Road.

The bicycle is a beautiful, human-powered transportation vehicle that can allow me to explore all types of urbanized settings, too.

I used the bike to get around Raiders-run Allegiant Stadium, which was used as a voting center Tuesday.

I even used the 1980s-era Raleigh to reach the A's Experience Center at the UnCommons business district and also to bike to the Las Vegas Convention Center where the car show caused all types of car traffic.

Great job by the UnCommons for having terrific single hoop bike racks. Like this one:

Over at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the LVCVA is a little behind the times and uses these single-piece wavy bike rack that's not very good but at least it's something,

It was a wonderful week of bicyclin in so many forms.

On Friday, I wrapped up the week with a bike ride on the Red Rock Loop and saw the final touches of sunlight on the eastern ridge of the drive.

 

Bicycling Red Rock Canyon/Strip/Downtown On The 52-Miler In Las Vegas

 

It's about 6:45 AM and I'm bicycling on State Road 160 outside Las Vegas heading east for the Strip. It's a 52-mile bicycle ride that stretches from the Red Rock high desert to the Raiders, A's and F1 venues in the Strip corridor to downtown and then back through Summerlin and Red Rock Canyon to the homestead.

Just a reminder -- Nevada state law requires drivers to move over a lane when passing a bicyclist if there's a second passing traffic lane. Case in point: Take a look at this video

I bicycled over to Allegiant Stadium, where the CBS Sports crew was setting up its broadcaster platform in a parking lot on the stadium's north side.

 

I biked on the Hacienda Avenue bridge spanning Interstate 15 and crossed the Strip to get a view of the A's stadium construction site.

Then, it was a short ride to check out the Formual 1 race setup along Koval Lane east of the Strip. It's rather baffling how a local government (Clark County government) can allow four months of road and business disruptions caused by the installment and dissembling of the 3.8-mile track in the Strip corridor. Here's a video look.   

But that's Las Vegas for you. The Strip hotels and corporate overlords call the shots on public policy, not the elected officials.

I wanted to see the RTC Maryland Parkway project where the public transportation agency is taking the right lane of the three lanes going in each direction and converting it into a designated bus and bike lane.

The construction is a mess on about half of Maryland Parkway, but the section toward downtown is finished. Click here for video showing the completed section.

Let's take another look: 

The cool, overcast weather made it great to bike. It's all uphill from downtown back to Summerlin and the Red Rock Visitors Center, but the cooler temps helped me spin the road bike up Alta Drive and along State Route 159.

Stay tuned for more Las Vegas bicycle and Bicycle Man coverage.

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This Bicycle Stories report powered by Las Vegas Cyclery in Summerlin at the 215 beltway and Town Center Blvd.

Pugsley Is Transportation For Journalism Assignments

 

Part of the fun of reporting events is reaching them by bicycle.

This is my Surly Pugsley, a one-speed steel monster that I used to reach Allegiant Stadium to cover the UNLV vs North Dakota State football game.

Then, I will ride this powerful two-wheeler to T-Mobile Arena to cover the Vegas Golden Knights vs Los Angeles Kings NHL game tonight.

The Aero bike rack carries the bike lock and the fait tires roll over anything.

Bicycle Is Art Of Life, So Bicycle2Art Was Perfect Way To Start Saturday

 

Once a year the local bicycle coalition in Las Vegas works hard at putting on the "Bike2Art" bike ride in downtown to pedal around Las Vegas and see the wonderful wall murals and any other creative art work.

It's a fun bike ride and a terrific chance to see the creative artistry in downtown Las Vegas.

Always great to see Jennifer Grube from the bike coalition along with other supporters like the RTC and Isaiah Perez's law firm. About 30 bicyclists met at the Las Vegas Academy in downtown off 7th and it was cool to meet school district officer Terry and other school district folks who aided with the bike event.

Paco did a great job on the background of the murals, while Elena handled the speech amplification with  mic-and-speaker system on her bike.

Jen also does the Safe Route to School program at the Clark County School District, which is coping with a crisis of too many motorists hitting students walking/biking to and from schools.

It's a big school district with hundreds of schools scattered around a county beset with wide roads that are like mini-highways with traffic lights. Seems like drivers who think moving 50 mph on local streets is the standard have a tough time slowing down and stopping at school zones and crosswalks.

We need cops to hand out tickets all the time, overhead road flashers and lights and much stiffer penalties for all these parents endangering the lives of students on bikes and hoofing it to schools.

They should ride a bicycle on art rides like this morning. My pal and LVSportsBiz.com photographer Hugh Byrne was out there taking photos and you will see those on Facebook and social media.

Nice job by Terry the Clark County School District police officer who pedaled with us and made sure nobody got run over at intersections.

You might recognize this mural -- it drew much national attention. It's an ICE car smashing into Lady Liberty.

This ride was fantastic -- keep on biking and be vigilant about your safety on the roads of Las Vegas/Clark County.

  

Let's Roll In Death Valley National Park in Late September

 

I told you I would be at Death Valley.

It's like a different planet here.

And it's an hour and 45 minutes of stress-free driving from my place in the metro Vegas area.

Take a look

It's Artist Drive! 

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Keep on rolling!