On The Fly

“The climb gets harder - its a steady 10 mile climb before we reach the top, then its downhill all the way back to the car,” said Margaret De Young.  “Don’t tell me that right now!” - as I struggled to maintain a steady six-mile an hour pace climbing out of the Lake Meade basin in Las Vegas Nevada. If you think you’re in shape let Margaret and J.T. set you straight! It had been over a year since seeing Margaret and her partner J.T. My first free weekend in Las Vegas would be touring the mountainous landscape on J.T.’s Trek road bike that he had so carefully outfitted for me that Saturday morning of our first ride. Sixty-four miles over two days, “a casual weekends ride”, not so fast . . . The story begins on Saturday March, 3, 2012, we agreed to meet at 10:00 a.m. to just take a bicycle ride around their neighborhood in Vegas. That first ride turned into a 25.8-mile undertaking with an elevation gain of about 958 feet. Five miles out we started our ascent - that cl...