Bicycling Boulder City, Hoover Dam and the River Mountains Loop Trail This Weekend

 

It's been a while since I biked the River Mountains Loop Trail, a roller-coaster 35-mile ribbon of asphalt that loops around the ridge between Lake Mead and the cities of Boulder City and Henderson outside Las Vegas.

This amazing paved trail circuit shows that local government cooperation between the Boulder City and Henderson working in conjunction with the federal Lake Mead National Recreation Area can create a marvelous public resource like this amazing trail that draws many tourists. 

The weather was absolutely sparkling nice -- lows 70s, a slight breeze and a clear sky.

I start at the Mountain Lake Park parking lot off Lake Mead Parkway near Lake Las Vegas and start with three steep hills on the trail as I bike counter-clockwise.

Than it's a steady climb to Railroad Pass as I left the city of Henderson and headed for Boulder City.

Click here for a video of the trail as I biked the steady uphill.

It's a hilly course, with lots of ups and downs. I bike counter-clockwise to fly down the big hill from Boulder City to Lake Mead and its the national recreational area.

The route is a linear quilt of various biking sections the steady climb to Railroad Pass, the flying descent to Lake Mead, the roller-coaster of hills from Lake Mead to Lake Las Vegas and back to the small park off Lake Mead Parkway where I started.

In Lake Mead, I met two bicycling fellas who live in Boulder City -- Kevin and Bob. They live on a street of historic homes and know each other from childhood.

I met them on their street a week ago when I was bicycling through Boulder City. They're a couple of older goofballs, kidding and razzing each other.

They joked that I should buy a two-bedroom, two-bath house on their block that's selling for nearly $900,000. No wonder it's still on the market. It's probably the most expensive dollar-per-square-foot house in the metro Las Vegas area.

I was even in downtown Boulder City Saturday (yesterday) to see if I could sell a few books. I saw a bunch of triathlon cyclists getting coffee at the Boulder City Co, Store in downtown and I biked over on my Surly Pugsley to see if they would like to buy a book. (I was in Boulder City after biking on the fat-tire, single-speed, steel-framed Pug to Hoover Dam, photos below).

The lean folks on their $12,000 road bikes did not want to buy my $20 book.

But Marcia from Michigan did. Marcia was going inside the store when she heard me ask if anyone wanted to buy my Bicycle Man book. She said yes and even called her fellow Michigan friend, Bill, to come over and buy a book, too, because he was a bicyclist.

Here's a photo of Marcia and Bill and Bill's wife, Carolyn.

It was fun to see this crew after I enjoyed bicycling on the train tunnel trail from Lake Mead to Hoover  Dam. Here's a look at biking on the dam. As promised, more photos here:

To buy my Bicycle Man book, email me at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com:

Look for my bicycle-theme stories under this banner in the right-hand column on LVSportsBiz.com 

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Vital To Speak Out About Las Vegas' Mediocre Bicycle Support

 

If you have a beef about public policy, take it straight to the public board.

That's what I did with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), Las Vegas' publicly-funded tourism board that just completed a $600 million upgrade of the Las Vegas Convention Center with public dollars.

Before the CES show started in early January, I bicycled over to check out the CES show prep work.

As usual with the LVCVA's buildings, it was hard to find a bike rack. 

A $600 million building improvement and no bike rack in front of the building.

So at the January LVCVA board meeting, I spoke during public comments at the end of the meeting about the lack of bicycle support in Las Vegas. In fact, the Sphere security broke my locks and confiscated my bicycle that was locked up outside their fence off a sidewalk along Sands Avenue in June 2024 when I covered the NHL Draft for LVSportsBiz.com.

My comments showed up in the February board meeting agenda minutes.

Oh by the way, Sphere Las Vegas, you still owe me $53.42 for a new lock I had to buy:

New Hampshire Proposes Annual $50 Bicycle Registration Law, But Pushback Is Very Strong

 

Well, the anti-bicycle folks always are chirping about having a registration fee for bicycles and e-bikes because bicycles use public roads and paths.

And in New Hampshire, a state lawmaker is proposing just that -- an annual $50 registration fee to ride your bicycle on a trail or path.

This proposed state bill is drawing intense opposition.

And the sponsor said he might have to rework the language a bit.

Alex Pretti Was A Bicyclist, Too; Today's Red Rock Bicycle Ride Will Be In Alex's Memory

 

The slain ICU nurse who worked in a Veterans Administration hospital was a bicyclist.

Alex Pretti, the man killed by an ICE immigration agent in Minnesota Saturday, bicycled a Surly bicycle, made by industry distributor QBP.  Quality Bicycle Products made my Surly Pugsley bike.

This from Quality Bicycle Products:

Thank you, Bicycle Retailer, for your story on Alex.

Off the Red Rock Loop:

Escape Las Vegas/Clark County's Dangerous Roads For Bicyclists By Biking Death Valley In January

 

Clark County and its public works department and the city of Las Vegas have done such appalling jobs at designing safe roads for bicyclists and walkers that I often deal with the dangerous roads by leaving the Las Vegas area to bike.

A safe haven is Death Valley National Park, where I drive 17 miles down Badwater Road to the Badwater Basin parking lot and beyond the closed gates in the road that had a few washed out sections that caused the national park officials to close the road to motorists while the park clears the gravel and rock debris.

While the road is closed to car drivers, it's open for bicyclists and walkers. See this video. Click here.

Here's another video. Click here for Badwater Road.

An amazing part of this bicycle ride is seeing Lake Manly coming back to life.

After my Badwater bike ride, it was off to the famed Artist's Drive, a fabulous nine-mile semi-loop that cuts a swath through colorful rock and formations.

It's only two hours away and the drive is stress-free. You can stock up on food supplies while driving through Pahrump.

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Five Steps To Address Las Vegas' Dangerous Roads and Reckless Motorists -- And Lots More

 Here's our 5-point plan to address Las Vegas' dangerous roads and motorists:

1. Lower speed limits.

2. Design better roads that calm speeds and give more space and resources to walkers and bicyclists.

3. Mandatory road safety and driver education in all schools starting from the first grade.

4. Police enforcement increased bigtime and double police patrols. Zero tolerance on all the red light running, making right turns at red lights without coming to a full stop and the blatant speeding. And stop parking in bicycle lanes, especially at schools.

5. Beefed penalties and longer prison time for impaired, drunk and distracted drivers who kill people.

Please read this story elaborating on this five-point remedy plan.

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These are the best of the best when it comes to bicycling in Las Vegas -- my close friends Jared and Heather Fisher. We just did a big climb to the top of State Route 160 in Mountain Springs.

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This is a paved trail bridge above the beach just south of Santa Barbara, California.

Paved trails get people biking and save lives.

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Speaking of trails, here's another beauty in Florida -- the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail on the berm surrounding the big lake in south-central Florida. Photo from my friend Joe Capozzi.

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Bicycling in Death Valley. It's an amazing place. It's surreal and inspiring. I'm glad not a lot of people go to this national park compared to Grand Canyon and Zion. The beauty is enhanced with less people.

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My amazing friend Henry "Hanque" Pierson Curtis.

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Remember, folks, If you're installing a bicycle rack, use individual hoop pieces, not those crappy long racks with the tire slots or those songle-piece wavy ones. These will work:

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These will work, too:

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Bicycling To CES Easily Beats The CES Shuttle Buses In The Strip Corridor

 

CES the mega electronic product show has crashed into Las Vegas this week and I use my 1980s-era Raleigh road bike to reach the Las Vegas Convention Center to catch the packed aisles of razzle-dazzle devices and techy devices.

The traffic congestion around the Las Vegas and Venetian Expo convention centers is nasty and I pedal by all the stopped cars to my destination.

But today I tried something different because I'm also reporting from the Vegas Golden Knights-Columbus Blue Jackets game at T-Mobile Arena after CES. So instead of driving with my bicycle to a quiet side street about a mile or two from the convention centers and biking from there, I decided to park at T-Mobile Arena and take a CES shuttle bus.

Big mistake.

I could have biked from the arena to the convention center in less than 15 minutes.

But walking to the bus at the Aria, waiting for it to take off and then going two miles through road traffic took a total of at least 45 minutes.

And it was even worse on the way back.

During the long trip trip from the convention center to Aria, I sat next to a friendly exec guy from South Korea who lives in San Diego and works at a plastic resin factory in Tijuana.

We talked the whole time. The fella was friendly and he joked that he knew I would rather be on my bicycle.

He was right, 100 percent.

The sad thing is that it's hard to find bike racks at the convention center. The above photo is the one and only single bike rack next to the loading dock behind the $1 billion West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The new $600 million updated Las Vegas Convention Center has no bike racks in front. 

This pathetic awareness for the use of bicycle at the convention center buildings by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) reflects Las Vegas' low ranking as a bicycle city. People for Bikes, a national Colorado-based bicycle organization, ranked 2,901 U.S. cities for bicycle support and Las Vegas finished at the 29th percentile-- 2,073rd out of 2,901 cities.

The bike racks at the convention center are not proper bike racks, as well. Instead of a wavy design, the bike racks at the Las Vegas Convention Center should be single hoop-shaped or rectangle-shaped metal posts that allow a bicycle frame and wheel to be locked to the installed single-piece of metal.

There's only two venues on the Strip that has proper bicycle racks and it's T-Mobile Arena and Allegiant Stadium. Las Vegas Convention Center -- along with Las Vegas' airport and other hotels like Resorts World, Fontainebleau -- needs to install these types of bike racks. 

Allegiant Stadium also has hoop bike racks.

The fact is Las Vegas needs to improve its transportation options and not rely on a Tesla in a Tunnel approach to mass transit. 

And LVSportsBiz.com spelled out to the Clark County Commissioners what needs to be done to stop the road violence in Las Vegas.