Bicycling From Red Rock To The Strip And Back To Red Rock

From late July 

The Strip was serene at 7:15 AM on the final Saturday morning in July and surprisingly cool. I bicycled down to the Strip from my Red Rock Canyon area home for a 53-mile two-wheeled circuit that would feature stops at Las Vegas' Holy Trinity of sports palaces -- Raiders' Allegiant Stadium (2020), A's stadium (scheduled 2028 opening) and Golden Knights' T-Mobile Arena (2016).

These palatial sports playgrounds drove Las Vegas to becoming a sports mecca, along with its sports-friendly elected county officials who have prioritized sports growth over local amenities/services and a sports-spending public tourism agency called the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA).

I left my home shortly after 6AM because traffic is light and I don't have to battle car drivers who control roads that are not very hospitable to people on bicycles. About an hour into the bike ride at Mile 16, I stopped at Allegiant Stadium, which is managed by the Raiders. Under this arrangement, Raiders owner Mark Davis can generate hundreds of millions of dollars from non-Raiders events throughout the year.

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Biking west on Alta means ascending both elevation and economic classes, moving literally upward from downtown Las Vegas through economic layers until you reach Summerlin, where the roads are wider and engineered in a more friendly manner for bicyclists.

I biked over to Charleston Blvd/State Route 159 for the bike ride through Red Rock Canyon, where a consortium of government agencies finally launched a bike trail construction project from Summerlin to the Red Rock National Conservation Area and the Red Rock Scenic Drive entrance.

The groundbreaking for the Red Rock Legacy Trail was July 1 thanks to the support of Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones, Congresswoman Susie Lee, the Bureau of Land Management, the Nevada Department of Transportation and the federal agency that funds paved trails through federal lands.

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