Lovell Canyon: Summer Relief Outside Las Vegas

 

Lovell Canyon gives you a taste of the Spring Mountains without launching into the big trip up the Kyle or Lee Canyon Roads.

It's over the Potosi Mountain peak on State Route 160 at the small town of Mountain Springs and about three miles down the big hill and there's the turn for Lovell Canyon.

I live out here near Blue Diamond, so it's only ten minutes down the road to park, unload a bicycle and start bicycling up the nine-mile U.S. Forest Service road where people can camp out for a maximum 14 days in a row.

It's a lovely setting with lots of green color shades and rolling landscape

It's a great escape in the summer.

Trying to bicycle Las Vegas, the outlier city of the United States

 

I have lived all around the U.S.

There was metro New York City, then South Florida and off to Denver. Then back to South Florida before moving to Seattle and then a path that found me eventually in Tampa before arriving here in Las Vegas in 2012.

It's taken 14 years to 2026 for me to finally accept that things like planning and road safety in Las Vegas and Clark County (the local government that oversees the Strip) are just different from everywhere else. And when I say different, I mean the standards are lower amid a loosey-goosey approach to doing things around here.

My perspective comes from my perch on a bicycle.

I love bicycling. It's the ultimate form of transportation. It gives you the ability to soak in details of life all around you while also going just fast enough to reach your destination in a reasonable time.

I see the Las Vegas METRO police "DUI stings" and enforcement numbers, but I rarely see police officers patrolling Las Vegas area roads.

I live outside the village of Blue Diamond off State Route 159, which is a state road. But the only time I see a state trooper on Sr 159 is when there's a bad crash. Like a few Sundays ago when I motorcyclist crashed. I saw a makeshift memorial with a cross, alcohol bottles and other items at the site of the crash off SR 159 near Blue Diamond.

Today, there was a back up of 18-wheelers and trailers at the gypsum mine entrance a half-mile from Blue Diamond. Some of the 18-wheelers took up part of the SR 159 travel lane, which is not exactly a safe move.

Speeding, illegal passing and general reckless driving are common on SR 159. Mix in the 18-wheeler gypsum mine and plant traffic, the casual speeders and the guys on crotch rockets zooning 100 mph and you have a nice brew of road chaos -- especially on the weekends.

I used to bike all over metro Vegas.

No more.

People drive dangerously and recklessly. There are no regional paved trails except for the trail along the 215 beltway -- and those trail crossings are awful with cars entering and coming off the 215 beltway, endangering trail bicyclists who have the right-of-way when crossing road like Flamingo, Sahara and Charleston. Kudos to County Commissioner Justin Jones for pushing for the trail tunnel being built underneath Charleston so that bicyclists will not have to face the dangers of trying to cross Charleston at the grade level.

I cover lots of news in the Strip corridor. to avoid traffic and parking problems, I often drive with my 1980s Raleigh beater bike to a mile or two from the trip, park on a quiet side street and take out the Raleigh to reach my destination. For example, only two weeks ago I biked to the A's stadium construction site for a tour. Here's the Raleigh at the site:

Many of the hotels on the Strip lack bike racks for the public, with Fontainebleau Las Vegas among the worst businesses I have encountered for bicyclists. They refused to allow me to lock my bike on bike racks used by employees.

I good shoutout to T-Mobile Arena, built with bike racks right outside the New York New York parking garage near the ticket windows off the plaza.

But most of the Strip corridor is horribly planned for bicycles. The Las Vegas Convention Center has no bike racks in front of its newly renovated main convention hall and there's a small bike rack for three bicycles at the $1 billion West Hall convention hidden away behind the building next to the truck bay.

The Las Vegas Reid Airport also has crappy bike racks at the Terminal 1 parking garage. The metal racks are the slotted types -- way out of date and difficult to use to lock your bike frame to. This is Las Vegas, which ranked 2,171th out of more than 3,000 cities in bicycle networks, according to a 2026 People For Bike city rankings report.

Metro Las Vegas does have some nice scenic places to ride a bicycle -- the River Mountains Trail Loop in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the city of Henderson and Boulder; the Red Rock Scenic Drive and Valley of Fire State Park.

But the city of Las Vegas and Clark County don't control those bike places.

The local governments an make it so much more safer for bicyclists -- and walkers -- but building roads to love cars as fast as possible and not for bike safety is the priority in this town. There's a lot of lip service and talking. But let's see the paced trails and protected bike lanes in the work centers -- not just in the affluent development of Summerlin.

 

Metro Las Vegas Area Needs Road Help Bigtime For Walkers, Bicyclists, Non-Car Users; Start Building A Network Of Real Routes

 

It's disturbing and heartbreaking to hear about crashes on our roads here in the Las Vegas area. Before this batch of currently elected people, it was clear the city, county and metro Vegas built roads to move people in cars as fast as possible without understanding or accounting for the walkers and people on bicycles using the same roads. So these days, policy is only now changing to include other road users besides drivers and it's typically shaped in response to bicyclists and walkers getting crashed into by drivers and killed/injured.

Based on what I have seen around in the places I have lived in like metro New York, South Florida, Tampa Bay, Denver and Seattle, City of Las Vegas Government and Clark County, Nevada are at least 20 years behind building roads with protected lanes, separate trails and bicyclist-walker networks where safe and complete roads actually connect to make routes for pedestrians and those on bicycles who are using bicycles for transportation and commuting purposes .

The problem is that policy is driven here by reaction -- reacting to so many people killed/injured by drivers and not by progressive/preemptive construction of paved trails, protected bike lanes etc. Walk Bike Tampa put it very well: "It says a lot about our society when people injured in traffic crashes must publicly share painful stories just to justify basic safety improvements, while opposition centers around preserving the ability to drive fast through residential neighborhoods. No one should have to suffer serious injury before safer streets are considered worthwhile."

For example, we need a paved trail or protected bike lane from downtown to the Strip, which is an obvious connection. But the city likes to build trails along highways like along the 215 beltway and a current project along Summerlin Parkway. The city and RTC have received federal money to pay private engineering companies to come up with even more walking/bicycle plans that typically never get implemented. This is costing metro Vegas bigtime because our dangerous roads are one factor among several (under-funded education, health care personnel shortage) that led WalletHub to conclude, "Nevada is ranked the 4th worst state (No. 47) to raise a family, driven by low rankings in education, child care, and safety, ahead of only Mississippi, West Virginia, and New Mexico."

Four Clark County students were killed walking/biking to and from school last year. This is unbelievable. Most cities would make that the number one local issue -- stop killing students and children on our roads. I suggest metro Vegas do the same.

Spectacular Zion National Park By Bicycle

 

The e-bike craze sweeping America certainly was evident at Zion National Park, where people rented lots of bikes that looked like mini-motorcycles and cargo bikes for little kids to sit in the "back" of the two-wheel vehicle.

I was biking on my wheels using good, ol' leg power to check out the spectacular landscape views on this 90-degree day.

The valley floor is spectacular with walls of rock climbing to a gorgeous clear sky.

My strategy is simple: Arrive after the crushing morning rush around 1 PM, drive into the park to find a parking space just past the valley floor turn and take the bike from the car and start pedaling.

Today I biked the valley floor before turning back and bicycling the switchback road to the tunnel.

By the way, there is a paved trail from the visitors center to the turn where to start the valley floor road that is behind a mechanical arm that buses can pass. The park has a rule that requires bicyclists to stop biking to allow bus drivers to drive their buses past them.

Spring Rite Of Seeing Magenta-Pink Blooms In Desert Is Joyful Part Of Bicycling

 

It's getting into late March but I have not thought about these grenade bursts of neon magenta-pink in the calico desert, the mind-boggling blooms of the beavertail cactus that pop this time of year.

I adore these blooms and this morning after I bicycled the Red Rock Loop outside Las Vegas, I prepared a late-morning stir fry breakfast and told myself it was game on to check for these Mojave Desert plants at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

I checked in at the visitors center and then bicycled along the River Mountains Loop Trail and that's where I saw the explosions of fushcia in the sloping desert land where Lake Mead serves as a vackdrop.

When I left Las Vegas in February 2016 for Vero Beach, Florida, I missed the blooms of these amazing plants (and the opening of T-Mobile-Arena on the Strip.)

And when I returned to start LVSportsBiz.com in June 2017, I missed that year's bloom.

I still remember the jolt of joy I felt when I saw those blooms again in late March 2018 and there was a renewal of this rite Sunday afternoon.

The re-connection to this bloom color and spring rite of passage was more powerful than seeing the Bellagio or the Fremont Street Experience or the Strip again when I returned.

Nature eclipses all and today's doubleheader of bike rides -- the Red Rock Loop and the Rover Mountains Loop Trail/Lake Mead -- was a lovely reset for the week.

You know my saying: nature and bicycling before LVSportsBiz and writing.

  

Tip of the bike helmet to city of Las Vegas for installing single bike racks next to city hall entrance

 

Way to go City of Las Vegas for having single bike racks next to the city hall entrance.

I went to City Hall to use my two minutes during public comment period to urge the city council and all Claark County officials to make bicycle and pedestrian safety a priority and invest i building roads for all users, nit just cars. I told them a central paved trail system is needed and even wrote this story for LVSportsBiz,com.

It's hard to find bike racks at the $1 billion West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, which -- by the way -- just received a $600 million renovation on the public dime but did not bother to install a single bike rack in front of the newly refurbished convention center, LVCVA, that's how it's done -- call city of Las Vegas on how you install a bike rack near a public building entrance.

When Cars And Motorcycles Are Not On The Trail, Bicycling River Mountains Loop Trail Is Great Experience

 

Bicycling in the Clark County/Las Vegas area is dangerous.

Under Clark County Public Works Director Denis Cederburg, the county has created a road system that is basically highways with traffic lights, one that lacks a paved trail system or protected bike lanes.

So, I pack my bicycle in my car and drive 40 minutes to the River Mountains Loop Trail. I park in River Mountain Lake Park off Lake Mead Parkway near Lake Las Vegas and start a counter-clockwise ride on what is normally a fabulous paved trail loop of about 35 miles or so.

But yesterday (Sunday), it was a rather dismal experience.

That's what happens when you see a car along the trail, another vehicle coming right at you and teens on small motorcycles buzzling along the trail.

It's tough enough that a road system and drivers endanger bicyclists' lives on roads. But it's rather routine that drivers are in vehicles on the River Mountains Loop Trail in the Henderson section of the trail circuit.

City of Henderson staff and police have to crack down on this.

Otherwise you're going to see a horrific tragedy on what is normally a popular trail.