Monday, September 26, 2016

Still Pedaling Into Red Rock Canyon At 80



So, on my last walk in Vegas this morning, when I breathed in the cool, crisp dry air in Summerlin, he came chugging up Charleston Boulevard on his Schwinn bike, dressed in a gray sweatshirt and wearing gardening gloves with the finger tip cut off as his bicycle gloves.

It was 80-year-old John Taube, a former Teamster truck driver initiated by Jimmy Hoffa in 1956 who I used to see every morning biking his big heavy two-wheel rig from Charleston Blvd. into Red Rock Canyon on State Road 159. I used to be racing down the canyon hill on my road bike back into Summerlin when I would always see John slowly cranking up the grade.

"If you don't stay moving, you die," John told me this morning around 7:30 am as we stopped to catch up.

When I worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal and lived here, I gave the story of John and how he rides his bike very day 17 miles to View features writer Jan Hogan, who penned this story last year.

John pedals that hefty bike each morning from his home off Town Center, and then heads over to a nearby casino to relax after 3 pm when things are quiet.

I thought to myself, what a nice way to say good-bye to Summerlin and head back to Florida.


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