One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.

Finding a quarter within the first mile of a ride is always a good thing!

Got a text Friday morning from Joy asking if I was riding this weekend. A ride hadn’t been posted to the Adobo Velo Facebook group yet and I suspect it was because the annual Christmas party was scheduled for Friday night. After some back and forth I settled on riding Sunrise clockwise starting from Pebble Marketplace at 8:00. This would give some folks some time to sleep in or recover from the party before rolling out. I told Joy I’d meet her near her place at 7:00 to roll over to the start.

It was certainly nice to be able to sleep in before starting. After my typical overnight oats breakfast I rolled out at 7:00. On the way to Joy’s along Democracy near Wallin Elementary is where I found the first quarter of the day. Finding it certainly put a smile on my face and signaled that the day and ride would be a good one.

Made it down to Joy’s ready to go, but she was running a little behind. Not a big deal just meant more loops in the neighborhood cul-de-sac before heading out. Once she showed up I told her we were heading over to St. Rose and over to Pebble Marketplace. I had posted on the event post that I’d ride through Anthem Hills Park and if anyone was interested in joining to leave a comment. I never heard from anyone so I decided to save myself some climbing so St. Rose it was. We ended up making such great time down St. Rose that once we were heading east on Paseo Verde I took us all the way over to Arroyo Grande to cross the 215 and then double back to Pebble Marketplace. Fun way to pad the miles, but it allowed us to roll up to the start perfectly on time.

I was pleasantly surprised at how many had actually shown up to ride. Even more impressed with how many I had seen the night before also out in the morning. I lined everyone up, we snapped our group pic, and then rolled out for the ride.

Riding out to the Lake Mead Blvd climb went well. As we rolled along Broadbent I fell back to ride with Tony. Interestingly we watched as the rest of the group missed the turn to the Wetlands! Try as I might to get the group’s attention, it would prove futile. Tony and I made the turn and started our way over to Hollywood. I received a few text messages while going through Wetlands from a couple guys wondering where I was. I replied that we went through Wetlands and we’d meet up with them at the Green Valley Grocery at the corner of Los Feliz and Lake Mead Blvd. Took us a while, but we eventually made it and rejoined the rest of the group.

After a nice break we rolled out for Lake Mead. The climb up went really well as well as the ride down to the guard shack. Along the way I spotted some signs showing an exit for some Nevada clinic. I rolled up to where they were all parked and struck up a conversation. I had mentioned they may want to roll back up Lake Mead toward town to see if a family I’d spotted on the climb. The family obviously looked like they were living out of their vehicles and camping along the side of the road. The group then told me they didn’t have any medical staff on site and they were only out for a photo shoot of their new vehicles. After my brief chat I rolled on.

Made it to the guard shack and found that everyone had regrouped again and had waited for Tony and I. We let Tony lead us out and we set off after him a short time later. As Tony and I rolled up to the Lakeshore intersection we spotted a few riders riding along Lake Mead Pkwy. I told Tony that it was most likely a few riders who were cutting the day short and the plan was to go to Boulder City. A short time later, after having just passed the turn off for Las Vegas Bay, I received a phone call from Joy. When I got pulled over and answered the call my phone answered but the line was dead. I check my signal strength and it’s at zero. I rode about 100 feet more and tried to call Joy back and was surprised when the call went through. It seems that the group had rode out to the other guard shack for some reason. I laughed and told her that we were heading to Boulder City. I went on to tell her that her and the boys would have no problem catching up.

Riding along Lakeshore was nice. The weather warmed up nicely making it even more enjoyable. As we passed the guard shack leaving Lake Mead I asked Tony if he wanted to stop at the Terribles half way up the Boulder City climb or at Railroad Pass. He preferred to tackle the full Boulder City climb without a break so we set our sights on Railroad Pass. While we climbed, the lead group passed us up and I shared that we’d be stopping at Railroad Pass. Also I picked up what I believe is one of the more beat up quarters I’ve seen. The surface isn’t as scratched as some of the others I’ve seen, but none of those other quarters were bent. Takes a lot to bend a coin and the bend on this one was very noticeable.

After a short break at Railroad Pass, we crossed over the 11 and Tony rolled up and said that we were in his neighborhood where he’s used to riding. He also shared his thanks for me riding with him for a majority of the ride, but that I was welcome to head on out. I gave him a fist bump, thanked him for coming out, and then set off to catch the group just up the hill ahead of us. Thankfully I was able to catch them before the turn off to the UPRR trail.

From there we started hammering for the ride back to Pebble Marketplace. I’d been slow rolling for most of the day and my legs were acting up with the hard and then easy efforts. It was a really odd feeling. Thankfully once I started putting down some power and making an effort the legs woke up. Once that happened I started feeling much better.

Our small group of five hung out at the Starbucks patio for a few minutes before we setting off for Mountain’s Edge Park. Both Josh and Dave had started from there and with Joy and I wanting more miles I thought it’d be a great idea to escort them all the way over. The five of us made amazing time over to the park. I did convince everyone to continue south to Starr versus going across Cactus.

After saying our goodbyes to Dave, the three of us decided to ride over to Fort Apache to tackle the two Mountains Edge loops; however, as we were riding east on Cactus we decided to continue east to see how the new construction was coming along. We were quite surprised that the road is nearly complete to Buffalo with only the final 30 feet or so left to be paved. Thankfully the “gravel” section was all tamped down and quite stable for riding over with road slicks. I’d guess they’ll have it entirely complete in the next few weeks.

We made the right onto Buffalo to complete the second loop before heading back towards Southern Highlands. Josh peeled off to head to his place along Jones leaving Joy and I to return home. As the two of us rode along Southern Highlands we started talking about how much further we wanted to go. I’d been toying with the idea of riding all the way out to Speed Vegas, but we both were pretty tired and ready to call it a day. So we opted to take the most direct route back towards her place.

Joy was nice enough to roll with me to the intersection of Via Firenze and Democracy before turning around and heading home. This left me solo to climb up Democracy and eventually home. Felt like it took forever, the legs certainly weren’t happy about it, but I got it done.

Overall a great ride today with more amazing December weather. One of the benefits of living in Las Vegas is a near year round riding season. Looking forward to a nice evening chilling out and relaxing.

New bike fund: $34.03 (+$0.64)
0.49 new miles — From Wandrer.earth
635 vehicles @ 5.3 per mile, 1.4 per minute, Speeds: 37.5 mph (avg), 62.7 mph (max) — MyBikeTraffic.com
Give your activities the names they deserve. — by Bandok.com
Sunny-Sunny, 43°F-61°F, Feels like 44°F-66°F, Humidity 46%-30%, Wind S 3mph-E 4mph — by Klimat.app
— myWindsock Report —
Weather Impact: 4.6%
Headwind: 54% @ 2.6-10.3mph
Longest Headwind: 01h 17m 51s
Air Speed: 16.4mph
Temp: 41.6-62°F
Precip: 0% @ 0 Inch/hr
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