The first thing someone says to me when I tell them that I mountain bike is, "Where do you ride in Vegas".
Being practically a Vegas Native I'm used to questions of this sort. You know the ones.
"You live in a hotel"
"You mean people actually live there"
"You mean there are things you can do aside from hanging out on the strip?"
Granted, most of these I haven't heard in awhile thanks to technology and people finally understanding that Vegas is a City too, people do live here.
However, I'm still floored when people who live here are surprised by the things that you can do in this city.
So Mountain Biking...
The truth is there are a lot of places that you can mountain bike in and near Las Vegas.
Being a newb to the world of Mountain Biking I have to stick closer to the beginner trails. This helps to work on my skills and helps a little in preventing me from plummeting down the side of a mountain (just a little).
I do have some trails that I do love to ride that aren't beginner trails, but I do tend to crash often there (haha). In the beginning, I crashed so often my husband and I considered starting a youtube channel "Girl Who Falls off Bike".
There is a good chance this will still happen.
Ahhhh yes. I think you all would enjoy watching me struggle to pedal up a slight hill. I would be the perfect motivator for making people feel better about their skills. (chuckling to myself)
(large sigh)
So Trails. There are trails all over the Las Vegas Valley and more are constantly being created.
As you can see by the below map, thanks to the MTB Project website, there are trails surrounding the Las Vegas Valley.
There are trails in Blue Diamond, Boulder City, Calico Basin, Henderson, Lone Mountain, Rainbow Gardens and Spring Valley. There are thirty-five (35), beginning or green, forty-nine (49), intermediate or blue, and twelve (12), advanced or black, trails that scatter the Las Vegas Valley. There is a trail for every ability level that you can think of.
If you are the sort that hates uphill, "Me" *cough* *cough* than you would love bootleg canyon. You can go out to Boulder City and take a shuttle up and bomb down the mountain on your choice of trails. I love doing this. Which is how I have taken a roll or two down the mountain, but hey you don't know if you don't try. Right?!
OK. So a moment of honesty here. Before I started writing this I knew there were a lot of trails here, but I didn't realize just how many there were. So to find out how many we do have I am stocked!
I can't wait to get out there and get my bike between my legs.
Would you be interested in experiencing what a ride is like with the girl who falls of her bike looks like? Comment below if you want to see more. I know I want to ride more.
Next week the hubs and I will be traveling to Fresno CA where we will be trying a some of the trails that they have going on out there. I'm excited to see the footage from those rides. What about you?