Live and Let’s Not Die

In Diamonds are Forever, the action happens in two different parts of Vegas – the glitz of the Strip and the hardscrabble desert that surrounds it. 

This trip was oddly similar. Granted, I don’t spend much time in a moon buggy being chased by hired goons, but it is a week of startling contrasts. By day, myself and photographer John feel like we’re on the moon, as we scramble up the rock ledges just outside the city. By night, we navigated the dizzying array of food, entertainment and spectacle that is the Strip.

Why Vegas?

It might, at first glance, seem an unlikely spot for an MTB trip. The riot of glass, neon and noise of The Strip is even more sense-batteringly vivid in real life than it looks on film. This is American Pleasure, in all its unabashed glory. No schools, no houses, no civic buildings – just mile after mile of casinos, hotels, restaurants and nightlife, all shouting as loud as they can to try and get your attention.

But the Strip, for all its charms, is just a tiny part of Las Vegas. Away from the circus, this is one of America’s fastest-growing cities – over 600,000 people live in the city itself, with more than 3 million in the wider area, and a lot of those people like to ride mountain bikes. 

That means trails. In Bootleg Canyon. And Mount Charleston. And Blue Diamond. Trailforks lists 81 trails within an hour’s drive of the city itself,ranging from scenic, gentle Blues to Double Black Diamonds that would get any pro’s heart rate going. 

In October, when the heat of the summer has receded and the snow has yet to arrive, Vegas is also relatively quiet. Fewer conventions, summer break over, and  an endless supply of hotels with lower prices. You can get a nice hotel room – pool, buffet, parking, fluffy bathrobe – for less than a bed in a shared Morzine hostel.  And fly direct from Gatwick, return, for less than £400. 

So it might sound mad, and look mad, and feel mad – but Las Vegas might just be the budget MTB vacation you need.

Not your average bunkhouse

I’ve slept in some questionable places on MTB trips. Sofas. The backseats of trucks. Airbnb houses with obvious orgy rooms. We tend to be willing to put up with a lot for the riding we love. 

So to be greeted warmly by a crisply uniformed host, who ushers John and myself into a VIP reception lounge, supplies us with cold drinks and seems not remotely fazed by the fact that we’re in plaid shirts, Five Tens and are covered in crisp crumbs, is quite a different experience. 

We have been cordially invited to stay at The Fontainebleau, a luxury resort hotel just off the Strip. That welcome extends to private lift access, rooms overlooking the majesty of the Strip on the 14th floor, and a knock on the door after 20 minutes from a waiter bearing a bottle of chilled champagne, several iced Fiji waters and a box of macarons. It’s a little outside what we’re both used to, and a long way from the typical start to an MTB trip, but hey – we’re in Vegas, baby! Cheers. 

No bling in the morning

Our first day of serious MTB riding starts in unbelievable heat – over nearly 38 degrees in the city itself. So Jake, our local guide and mentor, counsels against our planned ride in Blue Diamond and suggests Mount Charleston instead. 

These trails are higher up, at over 5000 ft above Vegas itself, and are cooler by over 10 degrees.  We’ve also got two vehicles, so we can shuttle to the trailhead without hot climbs to sap our energy. After an excellent breakfast at local institution Eggworks, we’re up and ready to make our first descent early, on Lower Showgirl. 

This flowy, Blue descent trail is a gem, and perfect for a first-day shakedown ride. It’s not packed with features like built jumps and drops, but the rocky terrain and frequent switchbacks mean you’re speeding past the trees, over the rocks and looking 30 ft ahead the whole time – the faster you go, the more fun you have.

Then we’re straight onto Tin Can Alley – a shot of pure adrenaline with over 200 corners top to bottom. Dips, fast flat turns, rock kickers and sharp narrow bends fly past like lightning as we power our way down, riding high on the walls of the canyon and rolling low into the troughs – one of the best flow trails I’ve ever ridden. 

What a bloody circus

The good folks at the tourism agency asked us what we’d like to do in the evenings, and although a day’s riding often leaves me unable to much except stuff 2000 calories in like a starving jackal and go to bed after one beer, it seems churlish not to participate in a bit of what makes Vegas special. ‘Surprise me’, I said, and to give them credit, they fulfilled the brief. 

Our one ‘only in Vegas’ experience turns out to be tickets to see ‘O’, a show by legendary circus company Cirque Du Soleil, in a specially-built theatre inside the Bellagio. Two words: Jesus christ. It is mad. A non-stop barrage of dazzling acrobatic skill, with performers flying 40ft into the air, catapulting one another off swings and trapezes, all combined with unbelievably agile swimming. Oh, right – the stage transforms into a giant swimming pool and back to a regular stage again, about 20 times in two hours. Say what you like about Vegas, but it’s a different apres-ride experience than hearing a Kettering IT Manager tell you all about his 12 bikes. 

Booze Cruise

Bootleg Canyon is a bit of an obvious name. It’s the land that connects Vegas to nearby Boulder City, about 25 miles southeast. Boulder was built from scratch to house workers for the Hoover Dam construction, and they didn’t let the workers drink. So smugglers brought the stuff in through Bootleg Canyon from Vegas. Then when prohibition came in, that same canyon housed the illegal moonshiners who shipped their booze back in the other direction. We actually rode past the blackened mouth of a distillery cave on our way to the first trail. 

But this isn’t anything you’d want to ride unless you’re stone cold sober. This is a proper desert, and it is not welcoming to humans. The rocks, the dirt, the plants – it all wants to hurt you. It’s jagged, exposed, and there’s no part of it you’d ever want to land on by accident. Local rider and owner of All Mountain Cyclery Jeff Frampton makes that clear, then proceeds to skip over all of it like a mountain goat, with little thought for his own safety. Even at a more cautious pace, this is a fantastic technical trail – every sharp rock edge, boulder and exposed turn requires precise wheel placement, there are line choices everywhere and the bleakly beautiful landscape is dotted with Soviet-looking comms towers and radar dishes. It’s awesome. We spend the rest of the day sessioning a variety of these steep, unforgiving trails, whooping at every challenge we survive. 

Cowboy builders

It’s our last day, and we’re a bit sad. Our last chance to see the madness of the Sphere – the Vegas venue that is one giant circular screen. Our last chance to wolf free finger sandwiches and cakes from the VIP lounge. Our last chance to end a day’s hot desert riding by flopping into a huge swimming pool. And our last chance to shed on this mad lunar landscape that is the Vegas desert.

And they’ve saved a treat for us. We’re in Cowboy Canyon, just 23 miles West of the Strip, but as empty and awe-inspiring a desert as you could imagine. No shuttle today – we’re climbing up Kibbles and Bits, 7km and 330m of technical Black trail. I absolutely LOVE it. It’s tricky, with steps, ledges and lumps of rock to be hopped up and over, sharp turns that require multiple shifts in weight, and it never lets up, not even for a second. I start off feeling clumsy and finish feeling like Danny McGaskill as the black sheen of the rock lava gives way to the kitty-litter rock scree near the top.

Then it’s over to Boneshaker. Two miles of Double Black Diamond descent with a Red Rock Canyon as a backdrop, and all manner of traps waiting to snag the unwary . Every turn, every rock garden, every hop and twist and change in position demands 100% concentration as it steeply picks its way down the side of the canyon, and it really is steep – not the rolls of a wooded trail or the banks of a berm, but a near-vertical rock face covered in what feels like shattered Lego, with unthinkable consequences for any ride unlucky enough to snag a tire and go OTB. 

Proper type-2 fun, and the terror I feel on the way down is only matched by the sheer elation of having survived, and I immediately want to do it again. Or I would, if I wasn’t desperate for a beer, with feet like two baked potatoes and a pulsating head. 

Take your chances

So is it worth a gamble? Should you stake your precious holiday allocation, hard-earned money and need for adventure on a riding trip to Vegas? I’d say yes. Not because of its crisp Alpine beauty, or its cosy, village-like welcome – but because it might well be the oddest, most exciting, most memorable trip you ever take on your bike.  Be lucky 😉