We decided that on this trip to Las Vegas we'd leave the Strip, and a bicycle ride in Red Rock Canyon seemed like a great way to do that.
Red Rock canyon has a wide, mostly smooth 13-mile Scenic Loop through beautiful desert scenery. This video may give you an idea of how beautiful it is, but as with so much natural beauty you have to go there to actually experience it.
One great thing about the loop is how often the view changes. The park has so much variety, and the curves in the road and changes in elevation lead to some of the most dramatic changes in scenery I've seen on a bike ride--cresting a hill just as it curves and seeing the valley stretching out below was amazing.
We considered driving the 10 hours to Vegas with our bikes on a hitch, but we decided it made more sense to rent bikes instead. We ended up renting pedal assist e-bikes from EzRideLV (a small, family-owned company that we had a great experience with and would recommend). We picked up the bikes at a parking lot just on the edge of the Las Vegas development, and biked a few miles along Red Rock Canyon Road (a road with fast cars but a wide bike lane) before arriving at the Scenic Loop itself.
Inside the park the loop is very wide and one way, so there was plenty of room for cars and bikes without feeling crowded. Although there were plenty of cars, there were long stretches when it felt like we had the whole park to ourselves.
We ended up biking about 30 miles in total, including a few side trips.
We went in early May, 2019. This time of year seemed perfect--it was warm, but with the breeze we never felt too hot. There were also a significant number of wildflowers growing adding even more layers of color. I'd like to return at other times of year to experience how the park changes through the year.
With the hills, I was glad we were using the pedal assist e-bikes; we got a decent workout but were never struggling too much. The e-bikes we used were great, in some ways better than our own e-bikes. I was impressed with how long the battery lasted--after the 30 mile ride that included a lot of hills the battery level had barely budged.
Here's a PDF of the park newsletter that includes the loop: