Hey Everyone, long time member, first time poster.
I’m heading to Las Vegas for a work conference w/c 3rd November. I land in on the 1st, meaning I have Sunday 2nd free before the rest of my week is consumed by work and entertaining customers.
I’ve never been to Vegas, but the whole concept does not appeal to me so rather than see the sights of Sin City, I’d rather head out on a bike and see some of the more rural and beautiful spots in the surrounding desert!
I’ve heard there is a lot of good mountain biking options, but I won’t have a car so I’m looking at something where I can ride from the Hotel (Vdara Resort, near the airport) OR jump on some public transport for no more than an hour of travel time. Road or Gravel is fine.
Does anyone have any experience of riding out of Vegas and into the surrounding “countryside”? What’s the cycling infrastructure like to get out of the city in the first place? And can you hit anything decent within a reasonable total mileage (say 120-150km’s).
And any recommendations on good, high end bike hire places would be great.
I’ve done some googling and Strava heat maps / course creation but no better advice than real life experience from some EC members!!
I have done similar in the past for road and MTB and found riding up to Red Rocks Canyon park is an awesome road ride (both the ride there and loops within the park). There are several shops in LV that rent good quality bikes. I used Las Vegas Cyclery who are in a great spot to ride to Red Rocks and you can find others with some Google research. I recall one shop is right at the MTB trails SW of the city and easy to get to via Uber or car rental. Riding within Vegas is tricky especially around the Strip but again my hack was to get to the shops which were outside the bustle. There are some decent greenways on the north side of Vegas too (again for getting to Red Rocks.
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I don’ t live in Las Vegas, but have done a few road bike rides there while passing through. I enjoyed all three rides, the pavement overall was decent, and I don’t remember have any extended sections where lack of a shoulder and traffic was really bad.
If you’re going across town in order to get out of town, be sure to use heat maps (Ride with GPS is my choice, but Strava also works) to find the best route. Many of the streets can be very busy so you want to make sure there’s a bike lane if you’re on a major street (have “Bike Paths” enabled in your route planner or use Google Maps). I also found that using Google Street view is a great way to see what type of shoulder a road has (or doesn’t).
Here’s the three rides I’ve done:
Red Rocks Canyon ( EM: Red Rock Canyon (Las Vegas) | Strava ). Very scenic ride. Likely to have traffic (tourists), probably especially on the weekend. But I seem to recall that traffic isn’t going very fast in the canyon.
River Mountain Loop Trail (NV: River Mountains Loop Trail (Las Vegas) | Strava). This ride is a big loop to the east and south. Lots of the route is on a bike path that was in good condition. Quite a bit of climbing, including some short punchy-type climbs. Nice route overall.
Eastern Loop (Las Vegas: Lake Las Vegas Loop | Strava). Mainly on roads, but also a section on a bike path when coming back into town (after Lake Las Vegas). The only area that I recall being a little sketchy in terms of traffic is when leaving town (by Sunset Manor) to head east on the final portion of the climb. I don’t think the road had a shoulder and there was some truck traffic. But after that, you’re pretty much out in the boonies.
I would ride any of these three routes again. Yes, some sections of each route of better than other sections, but I don’t have any nightmares or remembrance of “wow…never going to do that route again”.
Hope this helps.